Full English Description for Cisco N9K-C9508-B2
1. Part Number Naming Breakdown
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N9K: Cisco Nexus 9000 cloud-native modular data center switch family
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C9508: Flagship 13RU modular chassis with 8 universal hot-swappable line card slots, same mechanical frame as bare N9K-C9508 and N9K-C9508-B1
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B2: High-capacity factory pre-populated bundle SKU (Base Bundle 2). The key differentiation from B1: fully populated 6 fabric modules onboard at factory, while B1 only includes 3 fabric modules. Standard baseline redundant hardware pre-installed for immediate maximum non-blocking bandwidth without additional fabric module procurement.
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Platform architecture: Supports FX/FX2/GX/GX2 Cloud Scale ASIC line cards; dual independent operating modes: standalone NX-OS and ACI intent-based fabric mode.
2. Short Sales One-Liner (For BOM, Quotation & Datasheet Header)
Cisco Nexus N9K-C9508-B2, 13RU rack-mount high-performance fully pre-configured flagship modular core/spine/aggregation data center chassis bundle, factory preloaded with 1 supervisor engine, 3 × 3000W platinum power supplies, 2 redundant system controllers, 3 fan trays and full set of 6 fabric modules, 8 empty universal line card slots supporting full portfolio of copper/optical 1G/10G/25G/40G/50G/100G/400G line cards, maximum 128 Tbps full non-blocking switching capacity, dual-mode standalone NX-OS or native ACI fabric operation, purpose-built for hyperscale leaf-spine core interconnection, large multi-pod ACI border spine fabrics, massive AI/GPU HPC training clusters, enterprise high-capacity core aggregation and unified converged storage backbone deployments requiring full chassis bandwidth out of the box.
3. Complete Product Overview Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9508-B2 is a maximum-bandwidth pre-assembled factory bundle variant of the flagship 13RU Nexus 9508 modular Layer 2/3 chassis switch, designed to eliminate post-delivery fabric module upgrades and deliver full chassis non-blocking capacity immediately upon deployment for enterprise, service provider and hyperscale cloud core, aggregation and spine workloads. Unlike the base N9K-C9508 bare chassis and entry-level N9K-C9508-B1 bundle (3 fabric modules), the -B2 SKU ships factory pre-populated with a complete hardware stack including six full fabric modules, removing the need for separate fabric card ordering to unlock the chassis’ full 128 Tbps switching performance.
The chassis features eight universal hot-swappable line card bays and six dedicated fabric module slots fully populated at factory. When equipped with N9K-C9508-FM-G 1.6 Tbps high-speed fabric modules, it delivers a maximum full-duplex non-blocking switching capacity of 128 Tbps, supporting wire-rate forwarding for minimum 64-byte Ethernet frames across all supported port speeds. Customers customize port density post-delivery via interchangeable line cards covering all mainstream data center interface types: 10/100/1000BASE-T copper RJ45, SFP/SFP+/SFP28/SFP56 low/mid-speed optical ports, QSFP+/QSFP28/QSFP56/QSFP-DD breakout-capable high-speed optical ports up to native 400G. All Cloud Scale line card ports support independent flexible breakout configurations for seamless fabric migration across mixed-speed server, storage and inter-switch links, with hardware wire-rate 128/256-bit MACsec encryption available on all high-speed optical modules to harden inter-fabric inter-switch links without external security appliances.
Powered by FX/FX2/GX/GX2 Cloud Scale ASIC line cards, the platform integrates large unified shared dynamic packet buffers to absorb massive burst traffic generated by parallel GPU training and HPC workloads, drastically expanded MAC address tables and ultra-large IPv4/IPv6 LPM TCAM route scaling for multi-tenant segmentation, native hardware acceleration for EVPN/VXLAN BGP-EVPN overlay routing, and deeply optimized RoCEv2 lossless congestion control with PFC for ultra-low-latency parallel computing environments. 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 hyperscale cloud workloads.
Standard front-to-back (port-side intake) airflow and full hot-swappable redundant hardware architecture eliminate single points of failure; all pre-bundled supervisor, fabric, fan and power supply modules can be replaced live without chassis power shutdown or production traffic interruption. 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 to simplify large-scale multi-pod ACI deployment.
4. Detailed Hardware Chassis & Pre-Bundled Module Specifications
Fixed Pre-Installed Hardware Included with N9K-C9508-B2 Bundle
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Base 13RU 8-slot Nexus 9508 chassis frame
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1 × Hot-swappable supervisor engine (N9K-SUP-A/A+/B/B+ series)
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2 × Redundant system controller modules (N9K-SC-A)
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3 × Hot-swappable 3000W AC/DC/HVDC platinum-grade power supplies (N+1 power redundancy baseline; expandable up to 8 PSUs for full 4+4 grid redundancy)
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3 × N+1 variable-speed front-to-back PI airflow fan trays
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6 × Full fabric modules (FM-E / FM-E2 / FM-G, factory matched for maximum chassis bandwidth) – primary difference vs N9K-C9508-B1 (only 3 fabric modules included)
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Empty 8 × universal line card slots (line cards ordered separately based on port density requirements)
Supported Line Card Maximum Port Densities (Full Chassis Population)
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1/10GBASE-T copper: Up to 384 ports
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25G SFP28: Up to 1024 ports
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50G SFP56: Up to 512 ports
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40G/100G QSFP+/QSFP28: Up to 256 ports
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400G QSFP-DD: Up to 196 ports
Fabric Module Options Pre-Loaded in B2 Bundle
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N9K-C9508-FM-E: 800 Gbps per-slot fabric module, optimized for 50G/100G medium-scale workloads
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N9K-C9508-FM-E2: Enhanced 800 Gbps fabric module with improved buffer scheduling for AI burst traffic
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N9K-C9508-FM-G: 1.6 Tbps per-slot Cloud Scale fabric module, unlocks maximum chassis capacity up to 128 Tbps non-blocking bandwidth (standard factory fit for B2 high-performance deployments)
Supervisor Module Capabilities
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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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High-capacity onboard SSD for NX-OS firmware, configuration archives and telemetry log storage
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SUP-B/B+ variants include high-precision timing hardware for PTP, SyncE and data center clock synchronization
Power & Cooling
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Pre-bundled power supply: 3 × 3000W AC PI, 3000W DC PI, or 3000W HVAC/HVDC PI hot-swappable PSUs (expandable up to 8 total PSUs for 4+4 grid full redundancy)
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Fan trays: Front-to-back PI port-side intake airflow, N+1 variable-speed redundant design (3 included, expandable to full set)
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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: 13RU standard 19-inch EIA rack chassis
Height: 57.78 cm (22.70 in), Width: 44.50 cm (17.50 in), Depth: 80.67 cm (31.76 in) with handles
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Empty chassis weight (bare frame only): 68.2 kg (150 lb); full B2 bundle weight (with pre-installed PSUs, fans, supervisor, controllers, 6 fabric modules, no line cards): ~98 kg
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MTBF: 928,910 hours under standard operating conditions
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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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Maximum full-duplex non-blocking switching capacity: 128 Tbps (enabled by full 6 FM-G fabric modules pre-installed in B2 bundle)
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Wire-rate forwarding throughput optimized for mixed 10G/25G/100G/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 Cloud 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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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; full FCoE support via SFP/SFP28 line card modules for unified compute-storage fabrics
Cloud Fabric Overlay
Hardware-accelerated EVPN/VXLAN symmetric & asymmetric BGP-EVPN 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 high-speed optical 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 IPN routing support, factory POAP zero-touch automation profiles, accelerated APIC controller discovery, built-in inter-pod link validation templates, preconfigured breakout port mapping for large-scale high-bandwidth ACI spine 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, six redundant centralized fabric cards pre-installed, hot-swappable supervisor, dual redundant system controllers, hot-swappable power supply, fan and line card FRUs for non-disruptive field maintenance
6. Typical Deployment Use Cases
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Maximum-performance pre-configured flagship core spine bundle for large-scale 100G/400G leaf-spine hyperscale cloud data center fabrics requiring full chassis bandwidth day one
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Ultra-high-capacity aggregation backbone chassis for rapid consolidation of hundreds of ToR leaf racks for virtualization and unified storage workloads without later fabric expansion upgrades
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Standardized high-bandwidth multi-pod border spine bundle interconnecting independent ACI fabric domains across geographically separated data center sites
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Turnkey high-bandwidth core node for hyperscale IaaS/PaaS multi-tenant cloud environments with massive east-west traffic and future-proof 400G scalability
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Pre-assembled HPC parallel computing cluster core switch supporting mixed-speed breakout ports for large-scale GPU interconnect training clusters with full non-blocking fabric capacity
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Standardized converged compute/storage aggregation backbone bundle with SFP/SFP28 line cards for unified FCoE block storage workload consolidation
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Data center standardized high-performance baseline chassis bundle to simplify procurement, eliminate post-deployment hardware upgrades and reduce spare parts inventory complexity
7. Datasheet Short Summary Paragraph
The Cisco Nexus N9K-C9508-B2 is a 13RU maximum-bandwidth pre-configured factory bundle flagship Cloud Scale modular core/aggregation/spine cloud data center chassis, factory pre-populated with 1 supervisor, 3 PSUs, 2 system controllers, 3 fan trays and a complete set of 6 fabric modules (key upgrade over B1’s 3 fabric modules), featuring 8 empty universal line card slots supporting copper, SFP, QSFP28 and QSFP-DD multi-speed optical line modules, delivering full 128 Tbps non-blocking switching capacity out of the box with dual redundant supervisors, dual system controllers, N+1 fan trays and grid redundant 3000W Platinum power supplies. Supporting both standalone modular NX-OS and native ACI intent-based fabric operational modes, it is compatible with FX/FX2/GX/GX2 ASIC line cards featuring large unified shared buffer, ultra-expanded L2/L3 TCAM routing scale, full-port wire-rate MACsec encryption and optimized RoCEv2 lossless transport; the full-fabric B2 bundle removes post-install fabric card upgrades, accelerating high-performance fabric commissioning, serving as a turnkey maximum-capacity modular terabit backbone switch for hyperscale cloud spine layers, multi-pod ACI fabrics, enterprise high-capacity core aggregation and large AI/GPU HPC data center optical fabric infrastructure.
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