Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C9364C-GX
1. Part Number Naming Breakdown
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N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 cloud-scale fixed data center switch family
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C9364C: High-density 2RU fixed chassis with 64 QSFP28 multi-rate ports, dual-purpose leaf/spine platform
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C: QSFP28 multi-rate optical interface supporting native 40G / 100G with breakout capability
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GX: First-generation GX Cloud Scale ASIC, large shared packet buffer, expanded L2/L3 TCAM scale, optimized RoCEv2 lossless transport for GPU/HPC, dual operating modes: standalone NX-OS and ACI intent-based fabric mode
2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)
Cisco Nexus N9K-C9364C-GX, 2RU rack-mount high-density dual-purpose leaf/spine data center switch, 64 universal QSFP28 10/40/100G multi-rate ports plus 2 auxiliary 1/10G SFP+ ports, 12.8 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity, dual hot-swappable 2000W Platinum-efficiency redundant power supplies and four 3+1 N+1 variable-speed fan trays, dual-mode standalone NX-OS or native ACI fabric operation, optimized for hyperscale leaf-spine core interconnection, large GPU/AI training clusters, HPC low-latency computing, multi-pod ACI fabrics and 100G converged storage-compute deployments.
3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9364C-GX is a 2RU fixed-port Layer 2/3 all-optical flexible leaf/spine switch built on the first-generation GX Cloud Scale ASIC, designed for terabit-scale enterprise, hyperscale cloud, AI machine learning, high-performance computing and Cisco ACI Application Centric Infrastructure multi-pod environments. It delivers ultra-high port density with 64 universal QSFP28 high-speed optical ports paired with two auxiliary SFP+ 1/10G ports for low-speed backup links or secondary storage access, supporting full wire-rate non-blocking forwarding with total switching bandwidth of 12.8 Tbps and forwarding throughput of 9.6 Bpps for minimum 64-byte Ethernet framesCisco.
All 64 QSFP28 ports natively support 40G and 100G transceivers, with flexible breakout per port quad groups (ports grouped into sets of four "MAC quads"; all four ports within one quad must run identical speed/breakout configuration, mixed speeds inside a single quad are prohibited)Cisco. Valid breakout options include 4×10G, 4×25G, 4×50G, 2×100G via breakout DAC cables and QSA adapters; 10G operation does not support auto-negotiation on QSFP28 ports. Ports 49–64 are factory-designated default fabric uplinks for ACI discovery, while ports 1–48 operate as standard server/storage downlinks in default leaf profile. All QSFP28 ports support wire-rate 128/256-bit MACsec encryption for secure inter-fabric links.
Powered by GX-series advanced Cloud Scale silicon, this platform features a large shared dynamic packet buffer to absorb heavy burst traffic from parallel GPU workloads, drastically expanded MAC address table and ultra-large IPv4/IPv6 LPM TCAM route scale, native hardware acceleration for EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing, and deeply tuned RoCEv2 lossless congestion control for ultra-low-latency AI training clusters. High-performance unsampled streaming telemetry integrates fully with Cisco Tetration Analytics for end-to-end full-fabric observability, alongside expanded VRF, multicast and microsegmentation policy capacity for multi-tenant hyperscale isolation. This chassis ships with factory default leaf port partitioning and pre-tuned POAP zero-touch provisioning workflows to simplify ACI fabric deployment.
The chassis integrates dual independent out-of-band management interfaces: dedicated 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 Ethernet and SFP multi-rate fiber remote management uplink ports, plus mini-USB RS232 local console and single USB 2.0 Type-A port to support offline configuration backup and firmware upgrades. Dual hot-swappable 2000W power supplies and four N+1 redundant fan trays eliminate single points of hardware failure, with two standardized airflow variants (PI port-side intake / PE port-side exhaust) selectable at order time; all power and fan modules must match airflow direction during operation to avoid thermal overloadCisco. This switch supports two independent operating modes: modular standalone Cisco NX-OS for traditional routed core/leaf data center architectures, or native ACI fabric mode for policy-driven automated multi-tenant cloud infrastructure. Its 2RU ultra-dense 100G flexible dual-purpose design maximizes rack port density for mixed leaf/spine terabit-scale fabric deployments and modern AI GPU workload racks.
4. Detailed Hardware Interface Specifications
Universal QSFP28 High-Speed Ports (64 × Multi-Rate Slots, all MACsec-capable)
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Native supported line rates: 40GBASE, 100GBASE
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Quad group rule: Ports divided into fixed 4-port MAC quads; all ports in one quad must share identical speed/breakout config, mixed speeds within quad blocked by hardware
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Per-port breakout options: 2×100G, 4×50G, 4×25G, 4×10G via breakout cables & QSA adapters
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Transceiver compatibility: QSFP28 100G SR4/LR4/ER4, QSFP+ 40G SR4/LR4, SFP28 25G, SFP+ 10G via QSA, passive QSFP28 DAC twinax cables
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ACI default port mapping: Ports 1–48 = downlinks; Ports 49–64 = fabric uplinks (reserved for APIC discovery)
Auxiliary SFP+ Ports (2 × Auto-Sensing 1/10G Slots)
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Auto-negotiated speeds: 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps
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Typical use cases: Secondary storage access, backup management links, low-speed out-of-band aggregation
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 remote 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 (1+1 load-sharing redundancy, non-disruptive hot-swap):
2000W AC PI, 2000W AC PE, 2000W DC PI, 2000W DC PE, 2000W HVAC/HVDC PI/PE
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Four variable-speed fan trays (3+1 N+1 redundancy, 160CFM airflow):
NXA-FAN-160CFM2-PI (burgundy label, port-side intake)
NXA-FAN-160CFM2-PE (blue label, port-side 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: -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: 2RU standard 19-inch rack chassis
Height: 8.61 cm (3.39 in), Width: 44.23 cm (17.41 in), Depth: 57.4 cm (22.59 in)Cisco
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Weight: 13.2 kg empty chassis (no PSUs/fans); fully populated weight ~18.5 kg
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Compliance: RoHS-6, NEBS Level 3, global safety, EMC and telecom regulatory certifications
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MTBF: 323,140 hours under standard operating conditionsCisco
Core Hardware Performance Benchmarks
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Total switching capacity: 12.8 Tbps full duplex non-blocking
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Forwarding rate: 9.6 Bpps (64-byte frame wire-rate)
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Shared dynamic packet buffer: Large GX-series buffer pool for cross-port burst traffic absorption
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MAC address table size: Expanded GX-scale large MAC forwarding entry pool
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IPv4 / IPv6 unicast LPM route table capacity: Ultra-large TCAM scale for hyperscale multi-pod fabrics
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VLAN support: Up to 4094 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
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Maximum isolated VRF instances: 16,000 multi-tenant virtual routing tables
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System memory: 32GB DRAM + 128GB high-capacity 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, full BGP routing suite, VRRP, PIM sparse/dense multicast; limited FCoE support via designated QSFP28 downlink ports
Cloud Fabric Overlay
Hardware-accelerated EVPN/VXLAN symmetric & asymmetric routing, multi-tenant VXLAN segmentation, fabric multicast optimization, advanced lossless RoCEv2 congestion control optimized for GPU/AI/HPC low-latency training workload clusters
Enterprise & Fabric Security
802.1X port authentication, MAB MAC bypass authentication, DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection, CoPP control-plane policing, hardware wire-rate 128/256-bit MACsec encryption on all 64 QSFP28 fabric ports, TrustSec SGT zero-trust micro-segmentation for core fabric isolation
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 for end-to-end fabric analytics
ACI Default Profile Features
Factory predefined leaf port partition (48 downlinks + 16 fabric uplinks), native APIC controller discovery, streamlined ACI POAP zero-touch provisioning workflow, built-in inter-pod IPN link validation templates
Automation & DevOps
POAP zero-touch provisioning, NX-API REST JSON/XML APIs, embedded Linux Bash shell, native Python scripting, Ansible/Puppet/Chef full integration, containerized application hosting, hot patching and ISSU in-service software upgrade without core fabric traffic downtime
High Availability
Modular fault-isolated process architecture, stateful process restart, redundant control plane, hot-swappable power supply and fan FRUs for non-disruptive field maintenance
6. Typical Deployment Use Cases
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Dual-purpose flexible leaf or core spine switch for large-scale 100G leaf-spine data center fabrics
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High-density aggregation leaf switch for 100G GPU virtualization and large-scale AI model training clusters
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Inter-pod border spine switch connecting multiple independent ACI multi-pod fabric domains
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Dedicated high-bandwidth core node for hyperscale IaaS/PaaS multi-tenant cloud environments
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Converged compute/storage fabric node supporting FCoE block storage workloads with high 100G port density
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HPC parallel computing cluster leaf/spine with breakout capability to support mixed 10G/25G/100G GPU interconnect speeds
7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9364C-GX is a 2RU GX-generation ultra-high-density flexible dual-purpose 100G leaf/spine cloud data center switch equipped with 64 breakout-capable universal QSFP28 40/100G fabric ports plus two auxiliary 1/10G SFP+ ports, delivering 12.8 Tbps non-blocking switching performance with dual 2000W Platinum redundant power and four 3+1 redundant fan trays. Supporting both standalone modular NX-OS and native ACI intent-based fabric operational modes, it features the first-gen GX Cloud Scale ASIC with large shared packet buffer, ultra-expanded L2/L3 TCAM routing scale, wire-rate MACsec encryption on all high-speed ports and optimized RoCEv2 lossless transport, serving as a high-port-density terabit leaf/spine aggregation switch for hyperscale cloud, AI/GPU HPC, multi-pod ACI fabrics and converged storage data centers built around 40G/100G optical fabric infrastructure.
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