Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C93180YC-EX
1. Part Number Naming Breakdown
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N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 cloud-scale data center fixed switch product family
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C93180: Hybrid port leaf chassis of Nexus 9300 EX enhanced generation
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Y: SFP28 multi-rate downlink ports for server/storage access
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C: QSFP28 multi-rate fabric uplink ports
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EX: Enhanced EX-series Cloud Scale ASIC platform, larger packet buffer, expanded route scale, dual NX-OS standalone and ACI fabric operation modes
2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)
Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-EX, 1RU rack-mount hybrid-port cloud leaf data center switch, 48 × 1/10/25G SFP28 downlink ports plus 12 × 40/100G QSFP28 fabric uplink ports, 3.6 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity, dual hot-swappable Platinum efficiency redundant power supplies and 3+1 redundant variable-speed fan trays, dual-mode standalone NX-OS or ACI intent-based fabric, optimized for 25G server top-of-rack aggregation, converged storage-compute fabrics and large-scale multi-tenant cloud data center deployments.
3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-EX is a compact 1RU fixed-port Layer 2/3 leaf switch within the Nexus 9300 EX enhanced platform portfolio, purpose-built as top-of-rack leaf nodes for modern virtualized enterprise, high-performance computing and ACI Application Centric Infrastructure fabrics adopting 25G server access speeds. It features a hybrid fixed port layout consisting of 48 universal SFP28 downlink slots for server and storage connectivity, alongside 12 high-density QSFP28 multi-rate uplink ports for spine layer interconnection, delivering full wire-rate non-blocking forwarding with a total switching bandwidth of 3.6 Tbps and a forwarding throughput of 2.7 billion 64-byte minimum frames per second.
All SFP28 downlink ports auto-negotiate 1G, 10G and 25G transmission speeds and support FC-FEC for reliable long-reach 25G optical links, compatible with SFP 1G, SFP+ 10G and SFP28 25G transceivers as well as short passive DAC cables. Each QSFP28 uplink port supports flexible independent breakout configurations: 1×100G, 1×40G, 2×50G, 4×25G or 4×10G to match evolving fabric uplink speed migration demands. Compared with first-generation classic Nexus 9300 switches, the EX Cloud Scale ASIC provides larger shared dynamic packet buffers, increased routing table capacity and native hardware acceleration for EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing and wire-rate MACsec encryption.
The chassis integrates dedicated out-of-band RJ45 management, mini-USB RS232 console and single USB Type-A port to support POAP zero-touch provisioning, offline configuration backup and firmware upgrades. Dual hot-swappable power supplies and N+1 redundant fan trays eliminate single points of hardware failure, with bidirectional airflow options (PI port-side intake / PE port-side exhaust) selectable at order time to adapt to diverse rack thermal design standards. This switch supports two independent operating modes: modular standalone Cisco NX-OS for traditional routed data center architectures, or native ACI fabric mode for policy-driven automated multi-tenant cloud infrastructure. Equipped with comprehensive unsampled streaming telemetry and open DevOps automation APIs, the N9K-C93180YC-EX balances abundant 25G server access density and scalable high-speed 100G fabric uplinks within a space-saving single rack unit footprint.
4. Detailed Hardware Interface Specifications
SFP28 Downlink Ports (48 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots)
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Supported auto-negotiated speeds: 1G, 10G, 25G
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FC-FEC enabled for stable 25G optical transmission
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Compatible transceivers: SFP 1G, SFP+ 10G, SFP28 25G; passive DAC cables up to 3m
QSFP28 Fabric Uplink Ports (12 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots)
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Per-port speed and breakout options:
1 × 100G, 1 × 40G, 2 × 50G, 4 × 25G, 4 × 10G via breakout cables and QSA adapters
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Compatible transceivers: QSFP28 100G, QSFP+ 40G, SFP28 25G, SFP+ 10G
Management & Auxiliary Ports
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1 × 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 out-of-band management port
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1 × Mini-USB RS232 console port for local CLI access
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1 × USB 2.0 Type-A port for firmware upload, configuration backup and POAP deployment
Power & Cooling
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Dual hot-swappable power supply options: 650W AC, 930W DC, 1200W HVAC/HVDC (1+1 active load-sharing redundancy, live hot-swap without service interruption)
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3+1 redundant variable-speed fan trays, bidirectional airflow PI / PE configurable at ordering
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Power efficiency: 80Plus Platinum certified
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Operating temperature range: 0°C ~ 40°C under full load; non-operating storage range: -40°C ~ 70°C
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Humidity tolerance: 5%–95% non-condensing; maximum operating altitude: 4000 meters
Physical Form Factor
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Dimensions: 1RU standard 19-inch rack chassis, 4.4cm (H) × 44.5cm (W) × 57.1cm (D)
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Empty weight (without PSUs and fans): ~8.2 kg
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Compliance: RoHS-6, NEBS Level 3, global safety and EMC certifications
Core Hardware Performance Benchmarks
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Total switching capacity: 3.6 Tbps full duplex non-blocking
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Forwarding rate: 2.7 Bpps (64-byte frame wire-rate)
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Shared dynamic packet buffer: 40MB for congestion absorption
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MAC address table size: 128,000 MAC forwarding entries
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IPv4 / IPv6 unicast route table capacity: 128,000 routing entries
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VLAN support: Up to 4094 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
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System memory: 24GB DRAM + 64GB onboard SSD storage
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Typical cut-through switching latency: Less than 2 microseconds for minimum-size Ethernet frames
5. Core Software Feature Suite (Dual NX-OS / ACI Operating Modes)
Layer 2 & Layer 3 Routing
Static routing, RIP, OSPFv2/v3, EIGRP, BGP, VRRP, PIM sparse/dense multicast, FCoE Fibre Channel over Ethernet for unified compute-storage fabrics
Cloud Fabric Overlay
Hardware-accelerated EVPN/VXLAN symmetric & asymmetric routing, multi-tenant VXLAN segmentation, fabric multicast optimization
Enterprise & Fabric Security
802.1X port authentication, MAB MAC bypass authentication, DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection, CoPP control-plane policing, hardware 128/256-bit MACsec encryption on all uplink ports, TrustSec SGT zero-trust segmentation
Monitoring & Telemetry
Sampled/unsampled IPFIX streaming telemetry, ERSPAN remote port mirroring, local SPAN/VSPAN, real-time buffer, queue and fabric link utilization visibility, Tetration flow export compatibility
Automation & DevOps
POAP zero-touch provisioning, NX-API REST JSON/XML APIs, embedded Linux Bash shell, native Python scripting, Ansible/Puppet/Chef integration, containerized application hosting, hot patching and ISSU in-service software upgrade without traffic downtime
High Availability
Modular fault-isolated process architecture, stateful process restart, redundant control plane, hot-swappable power supply and fan FRUs
6. Typical Deployment Use Cases
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Top-of-Rack (ToR) leaf switch for 25G virtualization server and storage rack aggregation
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Converged compute/storage fabric node supporting FCoE block storage workloads
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Leaf access node for medium and large-scale ACI Application Centric Infrastructure fabrics
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Hybrid migration leaf for mixed 10G/25G server generations with abundant 100G uplink capacity to spine layer
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IaaS cloud fabric leaf for multi-tenant virtual workload racks with high uplink scalability
7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-EX is a 1RU EX-generation hybrid-port cloud data center leaf switch equipped with 48 multi-rate 1/10/25G SFP28 downlink ports and 12 multi-rate 40/100G QSFP28 fabric uplink ports, delivering 3.6 Tbps non-blocking switching performance with dual Platinum redundant power and cooling hardware. Supporting both standalone modular NX-OS and ACI intent-based fabric operational modes, it features hardware EVPN/VXLAN overlay, wire-rate MACsec encryption and enterprise-grade security acceleration, serving as a high-performance leaf aggregation switch for modern virtualized enterprise, HPC and multi-tenant cloud data centers built around 25G optical server infrastructure.
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