Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C93180LC-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: High-density multi-rate QSFP+/QSFP28 leaf chassis of Nexus 9300 EX enhanced generation
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L: QSFP+ multi-rate 40G downlink physical ports for high-speed server/storage access
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C: QSFP28 multi-rate 40/100G fabric uplink ports
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EX: Enhanced EX-series Cloud Scale LSE ASIC platform, larger shared packet buffer, expanded L2/L3 table capacity, dual operation modes: standalone NX-OS and ACI intent-based fabric mode
2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)
Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180LC-EX, 1RU rack-mount high-speed all-optical leaf data center switch, 24 × 40G QSFP+ downlink ports plus 6 × 40/100G QSFP28 fabric uplink ports, 3.84 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity, dual hot-swappable Platinum-efficiency redundant power supplies and 4+1 redundant variable-speed fan trays, dual-mode standalone NX-OS or ACI fabric operation, optimized for 40G server/GPU rack aggregation, HPC clusters, converged compute-storage fabrics and large-scale multi-tenant cloud data center deployments.
3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180LC-EX is a compact 1RU fixed-port Layer 2/3 all-optical leaf switch within the Nexus 9300 EX enhanced platform portfolio, purpose-built for high-performance computing (HPC), GPU virtualization racks and 40G server/storage top-of-rack aggregation in enterprise and ACI Application Centric Infrastructure fabrics. It features a dedicated high-speed optical port layout: 24 universal QSFP+ downlink slots for 40G server connectivity, paired with six high-density QSFP28 multi-rate uplink ports for spine layer interconnection, delivering full wire-rate non-blocking forwarding with a total switching bandwidth of 3.84 Tbps and a forwarding throughput of 2.88 billion 64-byte minimum frames per secondCisco.
All QSFP+ downlink ports natively support 40GBASE-SR4/LR4 transceivers and can breakout to four independent 10G SFP+ channels via passive DAC breakout cables; vertical port pairs must operate at identical speeds to avoid port disablement. Each QSFP28 uplink port supports flexible independent breakout configurations: 1×100G, 1×40G, 2×50G, 4×25G or 4×10G to support fabric speed migration from 40G to 100G. Powered by the EX-generation Cloud Scale LSE ASIC, the switch provides a 40MB shared dynamic packet buffer, expanded MAC and routing table capacity, and native hardware acceleration for EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing and wire-rate 128/256-bit MACsec encryption, outperforming first-generation classic Nexus 9300 hardwareCisco.
The chassis integrates dual management interfaces: dedicated out-of-band RJ45 Ethernet and SFP fiber management ports, plus 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, paired with comprehensive unsampled streaming telemetry and open DevOps automation APIs for scalable leaf-spine fabric construction.
4. Detailed Hardware Interface Specifications
QSFP+ Downlink Ports (24 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots)
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Native supported speed: 40GBASE (1×40G)
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Breakout capability: 4×10G via breakout DAC cables; vertical port pairs require matching speed configuration
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Compatible transceivers: QSFP+ 40G SR4/LR4/ER4/ZR4, SFP+ 10G via breakout assemblies
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Hardware limitation: Breakout only available on ports 1–24; uplink conversion rules apply for ACI modeCisco
QSFP28 Fabric Uplink Ports (6 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots)
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Per-port speed & 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 × SFP multi-rate fiber out-of-band management uplink 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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Four variable-speed fan trays (3+1 N+1 redundancy), 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 metersCisco
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): ~8.5 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: 3.84 Tbps full duplex non-blocking
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Forwarding rate: 2.88 Bpps (64-byte frame wire-rate)
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Shared dynamic packet buffer: 40MB for congestion absorption across all ports
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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 1 microsecond 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 for large HPC workload clusters
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 leaf switch for 40G GPU, virtualization server and high-speed storage rack aggregation
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HPC cluster leaf node for low-latency parallel computing workloads
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Converged compute/storage fabric node supporting FCoE block storage traffic
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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 40G legacy server environments with scalable 100G uplink capacity to spine layer
7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180LC-EX is a 1RU EX-generation all-optical high-speed cloud data center leaf switch equipped with 24 multi-rate 40G QSFP+ downlink ports and six multi-rate 40/100G QSFP28 fabric uplink ports, delivering 3.84 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 low-latency high-performance leaf aggregation switch for HPC, GPU virtualization, virtualized enterprise and multi-tenant cloud data centers built around 40G optical server infrastructure.
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