Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C9408
1. Part Number Naming Breakdown
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N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 cloud data center modular switch family
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C9408: 4RU modular chassis with 8 hot-swappable Line Expansion Module (LEM) slots, part of the Nexus 9400 centralized Cloud Scale GX2A fabric platform
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Core platform foundation: GX2A second-gen Cloud Scale ASIC architecture, centralized shared fabric cards, 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-C9408, 4RU rack-mount modular high-capacity core/spine data center chassis switch with 8 LEM line card slots, up to 25.6 Tbps full non-blocking switching capacity, support for 400G QSFP-DD / 200G QSFP56 / 50G SFP56 line modules, 2+2 grid redundant 2000W hot-swappable power supplies and N+1 redundant fan trays, dual-mode standalone NX-OS or native ACI fabric operation, purpose-built for hyperscale leaf-spine core interconnection, large AI/GPU training clusters, multi-pod ACI border spine deployments, lossless HPC parallel computing and 400G unified converged hyperscale cloud fabrics.
3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9408 (N9K-C9408) is a 4 rack-unit centralized modular Layer 2/3 chassis switch built on Cisco’s second-generation GX2A Cloud Scale silicon architecture, designed as a high-scalability core spine, border leaf or aggregation backbone for hyperscale IaaS clouds, large-scale AI machine learning training clusters, high-performance computing (HPC) and multi-pod Cisco ACI Application Centric Infrastructure environmentsCisco. The chassis provides 8 universal hot-swappable LEM line card slots paired with dedicated centralized fabric switch cards (N9K-C9400-SW-GX2A) to deliver a total full-duplex switching capacity up to 25.6 Tbps and high wire-rate packet forwarding throughput for minimum 64-byte Ethernet framesCisco.
Three types of field-replaceable line expansion modules are fully supported to match diverse fabric bandwidth requirements:
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N9K-X9400-8D: 8-port 400G QSFP-DD module, maximum 64 × 400G native ports across full chassis load; all ports support wire-rate MACsec with a maximum of 32 high-power 20W 400G transceivers per fully populated chassisCisco.
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N9K-X9400-16W: 16-port 200G QSFP56 module, up to 128 × 200G native ports or 256 × 100G logical ports via breakout; unrestricted MACsec and full high-power optical support at full chassis loadCisco.
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N9K-X9400-22L: 22-port SFP56 multi-rate module supporting 10G/25G/50G downlinks for server and storage leaf aggregation workloadsCisco.
All line card ports support independent flexible breakout configurations for seamless fabric migration across 10G/25G/50G/100G/200G/400G speed generations, with full wire-rate 128/256-bit MACsec encryption natively enabled on every port across all LEM variants to secure inter-fabric inter-switch links without external security appliances. Powered by GX2A-series Cloud Scale silicon, the platform features a massive unified shared dynamic packet buffer to absorb extreme burst traffic generated by parallel GPU training workloads, drastically expanded MAC and IPv4/IPv6 LPM TCAM route scaling, hardware-accelerated EVPN/VXLAN overlay routing, and deeply optimized RoCEv2 lossless congestion control with PFC for ultra-low-latency HPC and AI clusters. High-performance model-driven unsampled gNMI/IPFIX streaming telemetry integrates fully with Cisco Tetration Analytics and Nexus Dashboard for end-to-end full-fabric observability, alongside expanded VRF, multicast and microsegmentation policy capacity for isolated multi-tenant cloud workloads.
The chassis adopts port-side intake (PI) front-to-back airflow as standard, with full hot-swappable redundant hardware architecture to eliminate single points of failure: four 2000W power supplies deployed in 2+2 grid redundancy, multiple N+1 variable-speed fan trays, single hot-swappable supervisor engine (N9K-C9400-SUP-A) with integrated PTP, SyncE and timing synchronization hardware, and redundant centralized fabric switch cardsCisco. All power, fan, supervisor, fabric and line card modules can be replaced live without chassis power shutdown or fabric traffic disruption. The switch supports two independent operating modes: modular standalone Cisco NX-OS for traditional routed core data center architectures, or native ACI fabric mode for policy-driven automated multi-tenant cloud infrastructure, with factory pre-tuned POAP zero-touch provisioning and accelerated APIC controller discovery for simplified multi-pod ACI deployment.
4. Detailed Hardware Chassis & Module Specifications
Chassis Core Slot Layout
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8 × Hot-swappable LEM Line Expansion Module slots
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Dedicated slots for centralized GX2A fabric switch cards (N9K-C9400-SW-GX2A)
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1 × Supervisor engine slot (N9K-C9400-SUP-A)
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Multiple hot-swappable fan tray bays (N+1 redundancy)
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Four power supply bays supporting 2+2 grid redundancy
Supported Line Expansion Modules (LEMs)
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N9K-X9400-8D: 8 × QSFP-DD 400G ports
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Native speeds: 400GBASE; breakout: 2×200G, 4×100G, 4×50G, 4×25G, 4×10G
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MACsec: Wire-rate encryption on all ports; max 32 × 20W high-power 400G optics full chassis limit
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N9K-X9400-16W: 16 × QSFP56 200G ports
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Native speeds: 200GBASE; breakout: 4×100G, 4×50G, 4×25G, 4×10G
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MACsec: Full wire-rate encryption with no high-power optical limitations at full load
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N9K-X9400-22L: 22 × SFP56 multi-rate ports
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Auto-negotiated speeds: 10G, 25G, 50G; compatible with SFP/SFP+/SFP28/SFP56 transceivers and short passive DAC cables
Supervisor Module (N9K-C9400-SUP-A)
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Integrated 1G RJ45 out-of-band management port, mini-USB RS232 local console, USB 2.0 Type-A storage port
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Built-in PTP, SyncE, GPS timing and synchronization hardware for data center clock alignment
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High-capacity onboard SSD storage for NX-OS firmware, configuration backup and telemetry logs
Power & Cooling
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Power supply options: 2000W AC PI (port intake), 2000W DC PI, 2000W HVAC/HVDC PI; 4-slot 2+2 grid redundant deployment mandatory for full chassis operation
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Fan trays: N9K-C9400-FAN-PI port-side intake front-to-back airflow, N+1 variable-speed redundant design
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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: 1524 meters (5000 ft)
Physical Form Factor
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Chassis dimensions: 4RU standard 19-inch rack mount
Height: 6.97 in (17.7 cm), Width: 17.30 in (43.9 cm), Depth: 23.62 in (60 cm)
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Empty chassis weight: 121.25 lb (55 kg) without PSUs, fans, supervisors or line cards
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Compliance: RoHS-6, NEBS Level 3, global safety, EMC and telecom regulatory certifications
Core Hardware Performance Benchmarks
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Total full-duplex non-blocking switching capacity: Up to 25.6 Tbps with full fabric card deployment
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Wire-rate forwarding throughput optimized for mixed 100G/200G/400G high-speed workloads
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Large unified shared dynamic packet buffer for cross-port burst traffic absorption
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Massively expanded GX2A-scale MAC address table and IPv4/IPv6 LPM TCAM route capacity 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: High-capacity DRAM + onboard SSD storage on supervisor engine
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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 SFP56 LEM modules for unified storage fabrics
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 line card ports, TrustSec SGT zero-trust micro-segmentation for core fabric isolation
Monitoring & Telemetry
High-performance model-driven sampled/unsampled gNMI/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 Fabric Optimized Capabilities
Native multi-pod inter-fabric routing support, factory POAP zero-touch automation profiles, accelerated APIC controller discovery, built-in IPN inter-pod link validation templates, preconfigured breakout port mapping for large-scale ACI deployments
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 via Cisco Application Framework (CAF), hot patching and ISSU in-service software upgrade without core fabric traffic downtime
High Availability
Modular fault-isolated process architecture, stateful process restart, redundant centralized fabric cards, hot-swappable supervisor, power supply, fan and line card FRUs for non-disruptive field maintenance
6. Typical Deployment Use Cases
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Primary core spine modular chassis for large-scale 100G/200G/400G leaf-spine hyperscale data center fabrics
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Ultra-high-capacity aggregation backbone for massive 400G GPU virtualization and large-scale AI model training clusters
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Multi-pod border spine chassis interconnecting independent ACI fabric domains across data center sites
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Dedicated high-bandwidth core node for hyperscale IaaS/PaaS multi-tenant cloud environments with heavy east-west traffic
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HPC parallel computing cluster core switch supporting mixed-speed breakout ports for GPU interconnects
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Converged compute/storage fabric backbone with SFP56 LEM modules for unified FCoE block storage workload consolidation
7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9408 is a 4RU GX2A Cloud Scale modular core/spine cloud data center chassis equipped with 8 hot-swappable universal LEM line card slots supporting 400G QSFP-DD, 200G QSFP56 and 50G SFP56 multi-rate line modules, delivering up to 25.6 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity with 2+2 grid redundant 2000W Platinum power supplies and N+1 redundant fan trays. Supporting both standalone modular NX-OS and native ACI intent-based fabric operational modes, it features the second-gen GX2A centralized fabric ASIC with massive unified shared buffer, ultra-expanded L2/L3 TCAM routing scale, full-port wire-rate MACsec encryption and optimized RoCEv2 lossless transport, serving as a highly scalable modular terabit core backbone switch for hyperscale cloud, AI/GPU HPC, multi-pod ACI fabrics and unified 400G optical data center infrastructure.
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