Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C93180YC-FX-24
1. Part Number Naming Breakdown
Model: N9K-C93180YC-FX-24
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N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 cloud-scale data center fixed switch family
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C93180: Hybrid SFP28/QSFP28 leaf chassis of Nexus 9300 FX next-generation Cloud Scale ASIC platform
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Y: SFP28 multi-rate downlink physical slots for server/storage access
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C: QSFP28 multi-rate 40/100G fabric uplink ports
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FX: FX-series upgraded Cloud Scale ASIC, larger packet buffers, doubled L2/L3 forwarding table capacity, enhanced high-performance streaming telemetry
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24: Cost-tiered base license unlocks arbitrary 24 out of total 48 physical SFP28 downlink ports; full 48-port capacity activatable via upgrade license N9K-FX-24P-UPG= without hardware replacement
2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)
Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-FX-24, 1RU rack-mount cost-optimized hybrid optical leaf data center switch, 48 physical 1/10/25G SFP28 downlink slots (24 ports licensed by default, upgradeable to full 48) plus 6 universal 40/100G QSFP28 fabric uplink ports, 3.6 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity, dual hot-swappable Platinum-efficiency redundant power supplies and 3+1 variable-speed redundant fan trays, dual-mode standalone NX-OS or ACI intent-based fabric operation, optimized for small-to-medium 25G server ToR aggregation, phased data center expansion, GPU/HPC lightweight racks and budget multi-tenant cloud deploymentsCisco.
3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-FX-24 is a compact 1RU fixed Layer 2/3 leaf switch belonging to the Nexus 9300 FX enhanced platform portfolio, a cost-optimized licensed port variant of the full 48-port N9K-C93180YC-FX chassis designed for phased infrastructure rollout, small virtualization workload racks and budget-sensitive data center expansion plans. The physical hardware layout is identical to the standard FX model: 48 universal SFP28 physical downlink slots for server and storage connectivity, paired with six multi-rate QSFP28 uplink ports for spine layer interconnection, delivering full wire-rate non-blocking forwarding with total switching bandwidth of 3.6 Tbps and forwarding throughput of 2.7 billion 64-byte minimum frames per second.
The core differentiation is software port licensing: the FX-24 base license enables any random 24 of the 48 SFP28 downlink physical slots, while the remaining 24 ports are locked and can be fully activated later via one-time software upgrade license N9K-FX-24P-UPG=, allowing customers to start with a smaller server footprint and scale port capacity as business grows without swapping hardware. All SFP28 downlink ports auto-negotiate 1G, 10G and 25G speeds with FC-FEC enabled for stable long-reach 25G optical transmission, compatible with SFP 1G, SFP+ 10G, SFP28 25G transceivers and short passive DAC twinax cables up to 3 meters. Each QSFP28 uplink supports flexible independent breakout configurations: 1×100G, 1×40G, 2×50G, 4×25G or 4×10G to support smooth fabric speed migration from 40G to 100G.
Powered by FX-generation Cloud Scale ASIC, this platform provides a larger 48MB shared dynamic packet buffer, doubled MAC and IPv4/IPv6 route table capacity versus earlier EX generation, native hardware acceleration for EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing and wire-rate 128/256-bit MACsec encryption, plus high-performance unsampled streaming telemetry optimized for cloud observability. 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 fit 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 DevOps automation APIs for scalable leaf-spine fabric constructionCisco.
4. Detailed Hardware Interface Specifications
SFP28 Downlink Physical Slots (48 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots)
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Hardware total: 48 SFP28 physical slots; default license activates arbitrary 24 ports, upgrade license N9K-FX-24P-UPG= unlocks all 48 ports
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Supported auto-negotiated speeds: 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 25 Gbps; FC-FEC enabled on all 25G optical links
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Compatible transceivers & cables: SFP 1G, SFP+ 10G, SFP28 25G, passive DAC cables up to 3 meters
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Also supports 8G / 16G / 32G Fibre Channel for FCoE unified storage fabrics
QSFP28 Fabric Uplink Ports (6 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots, all permanently unlocked)
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Per-port speed & breakout combinations:
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 load-sharing redundancy, live hot-swap without traffic 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 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): ~7.9 kg / 17.4 lb
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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: 48MB for congestion absorption
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MAC address table size: 256,000 MAC forwarding entries
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IPv4 / IPv6 unicast route table capacity: 256,000 routing entries
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VLAN support: Up to 4094 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
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System memory: 32GB DRAM + 128GB 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 GPU and 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
High-performance sampled/unsampled IPFIX streaming telemetry, ERSPAN remote port mirroring, local SPAN/VSPAN, real-time buffer, queue and fabric link utilization visibility, full Tetration flow export compatibility
Port Licensing Scalability
Base factory license enables arbitrary 24 SFP28 downlink ports; optional one-time upgrade license N9K-FX-24P-UPG= unlocks full 48-port capacity without hardware replacement or chassis swap
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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Budget entry-level ToR leaf switch for small-scale 25G virtualization server racks (initial 24-server capacity)
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Phased expansion leaf node: start with 24 active ports, upgrade to full 48 ports as virtual machine and storage workloads grow
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Lightweight HPC / GPU cluster leaf for small AI training and parallel computing environments
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Converged compute/storage fabric node supporting FCoE block storage traffic for mid-size enterprises
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Entry leaf access node for medium-scale ACI Application Centric Infrastructure fabrics
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Hybrid migration leaf for mixed 10G/25G server generations with scalable 100G uplink capacity to spine layer
7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-FX-24 is a 1RU cost-optimized FX-generation hybrid optical cloud data center leaf switch with 48 physical 1/10/25G SFP28 downlink slots (24 ports licensed by default, upgradeable to full 48) plus six 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 upgraded hardware EVPN/VXLAN overlay, wire-rate MACsec encryption and expanded L2/L3 forwarding table capacity, serving as a flexible phased-expansion leaf aggregation switch for small-to-medium virtualized enterprise, lightweight GPU/HPC and multi-tenant cloud data centers built around 25G optical server infrastructure.
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