Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C93180YC-FX3S
1. Part Number Naming Breakdown
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N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 cloud-scale fixed data center switch product family
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C93180: Hybrid SFP28 + QSFP28 leaf chassis of Nexus 9300 FX3 third-generation Cloud Scale ASIC platform
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Y: SFP28 multi-rate 1/10/25G optical downlink ports for server, GPU and storage access
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C: QSFP28 multi-rate 40/100G fabric uplink ports
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FX3S: Specialized FX3 optimized variant, enhanced silicon tuning for ACI multi-pod fabrics, expanded TCAM scale, optimized zero-touch POAP workflow, native ACI APIC fast discovery, dual operational modes: standalone NX-OS and ACI intent-based fabric mode
2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)
Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-FX3S, 1RU rack-mount ACI-optimized high-performance hybrid optical leaf data center switch, 48 × 1/10/25G SFP28 downlink ports plus 6 × 40/100G QSFP28 fabric uplink ports, 3.6 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity, dual hot-swappable Platinum-efficiency redundant power supplies and four 3+1 redundant variable-speed fan trays, dual-mode standalone NX-OS or ACI fabric operation, purpose-built for ACI multi-pod leaf deployments, 25G GPU/AI training clusters, low-latency HPC computing, virtualization ToR aggregation and converged FCoE storage-compute fabrics.
3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-FX3S is a compact 1RU fixed Layer 2/3 leaf switch built on the latest Nexus 9300 FX3 Cloud Scale ASIC, a specialized ACI-tailored variant of the standard N9K-C93180YC-FX3 chassis, engineered exclusively for large-scale ACI Application Centric Infrastructure multi-pod environments alongside AI GPU racks, high-performance computing (HPC) and unified FCoE storage fabrics. It features a balanced hybrid optical port layout: 48 universal SFP28 downlink slots for server/storage connectivity paired with six flexible QSFP28 multi-rate 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 1.2 Bpps for minimum 64-byte Ethernet framesCisco.
All SFP28 downlink ports auto-negotiate 1G, 10G and 25G speeds with FC-FEC enabled to guarantee stable long-reach 25G optical transmission, supporting SFP 1G, SFP+ 10G, SFP28 25G transceivers, short passive DAC twinax cables, and 8G/16G/32G Fibre Channel transceivers for unified FCoE compute-storage fabrics. Each QSFP28 uplink supports independent flexible breakout configurations: 1×100G, 1×40G, 2×50G NRZ, 4×25G or 4×10G via breakout cables and QSA adapters, enabling smooth fabric speed migration from 40G to 100G and flexible port density tuning for mixed-speed workload racks.
Powered by FX3-series Cloud Scale silicon with ACI-specific firmware optimization, this platform delivers massive scalability upgrades: 512K MAC address table entries, expanded LPM IPv4/IPv6 route table capacity, extended TCAM resources for multi-tenant policy segmentation, 40MB shared dynamic packet buffer to absorb traffic micro-bursts, native hardware acceleration for EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing, full-port wire-rate 128/256-bit MACsec encryption, and deeply optimized RoCEv2 lossless congestion control for low-latency GPU and storage workloads. The FX3S variant includes factory-preloaded ACI automation profiles, accelerated APIC discovery logic and streamlined POAP zero-touch provisioning to cut ACI fabric deployment time compared to generic FX3 models. High-performance unsampled streaming telemetry is fully integrated with Cisco Tetration Analytics for real-time end-to-end fabric observability, alongside expanded VRF and multicast scaling for hyperscale multi-tenant cloud environments.
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 four 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 match diverse rack thermal layout 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. Its space-saving 1RU form factor balances dense 25G server access and scalable 100G uplink capacity for next-generation ACI multi-pod, AI and virtualized workloadsCisco.
4. Detailed Hardware Interface Specifications
SFP28 Downlink Ports (48 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots)
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Auto-negotiated speeds: 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 25 Gbps
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FC-FEC enabled on all 25G optical links
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Supported transceivers & cables: SFP 1G, SFP+ 10G, SFP28 25G, passive DAC cables up to 3m; 8G/16G/32G Fibre Channel for FCoE unified storage fabrics
QSFP28 Fabric Uplink Ports (6 × Universal Multi-Rate Slots)
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Per-port speed and breakout combinations:
1 × 100G, 1 × 40G, 2 × 50G NRZ, 4 × 25G, 4 × 10G via breakout cables / 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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Four variable-speed fan trays (3+1 N+1 redundancy), bidirectional airflow PI / PE configurable at ordering (burgundy = PI intake, blue = PE exhaust)
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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%–90% non-condensing operating; max operating altitude: 4000 meters
Physical Form Factor
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Dimensions: 1RU standard 19-inch rack chassis, 4.4cm (H) × 43.9cm (W) × 49.8cm (D)
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Empty weight (without PSUs and fans): ~9.52 kg / 21 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: 1.2 Bpps (64-byte frame wire-rate)
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Shared dynamic packet buffer: 40MB for cross-port burst traffic absorption
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MAC address table size: 512,000 MAC forwarding entries
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IPv4 / IPv6 unicast LPM route table capacity: Expanded FX3 scale for hyperscale fabrics
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VLAN support: Up to 4094 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
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VRF instances: Up to 16,000 isolated virtual routing tables
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System memory: 24GB 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, advanced RoCEv2 lossless congestion control for GPU/HPC low-latency workloads
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 54 data ports, TrustSec SGT zero-trust micro-segmentation
Monitoring & Telemetry
High-performance sampled/unsampled IPFIX streaming telemetry, ERSPAN remote port mirroring, local SPAN/VSPAN, real-time per-port/per-queue buffer utilization visibility, full Cisco Tetration flow export compatibility
Exclusive FX3S ACI Optimized Features
Predefined ACI port role templates, accelerated APIC controller discovery, streamlined ACI POAP zero-touch provisioning workflow, expanded TCAM policy capacity for multi-pod microsegmentation, built-in fabric inter-pod link validation logic
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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Dedicated ACI multi-pod leaf switch for large-scale policy-driven data center fabrics
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Top-of-Rack leaf switch for 25G GPU virtualization and AI model training clusters
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Low-latency leaf node for HPC parallel computing and big-data workload racks
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Converged compute/storage fabric node supporting FCoE block storage traffic
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Hybrid migration leaf for mixed 10G/25G server generations with abundant scalable 100G uplink capacity to spine layer
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Hyperscale IaaS multi-tenant cloud leaf with expanded VRF/multicast scale for isolated customer workload pods
7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-FX3S is a 1RU ACI-specialized FX3-generation high-performance hybrid optical cloud data center leaf switch equipped with 48 multi-rate 1/10/25G SFP28 downlink ports and six multi-rate 40/100G QSFP28 fabric uplink ports, delivering 3.6 Tbps non-blocking switching performance with dual Platinum redundant power and four redundant fan trays. Supporting both standalone modular NX-OS and native ACI intent-based fabric operational modes, it features FX3 Cloud Scale ASIC with doubled MAC table scale, expanded L3 routing & TCAM policy capacity, full-port wire-rate MACsec encryption, optimized RoCEv2 lossless transport and exclusive ACI automation tuning, serving as a scalable low-latency leaf aggregation switch purpose-built for ACI multi-pod fabrics, AI GPU, HPC, virtualized enterprise and hyperscale multi-tenant cloud data centers built around 25G optical server infrastructure.
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