Cisco Catalyst WS-C6840-X (C6840-X-LE-40G) Full English Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview

1. C6816-X-LE: 16×10G SFP/SFP+, no 40G uplinks
2. C6832-X-LE: 32×10G SFP/SFP+, no 40G uplinks
3. C6824-X-LE-40G: 24×10G SFP/SFP+ + 2×40G QSFP uplinks
4. C6840-X-LE-40G (WS-C6840-X): 40×10G SFP/SFP+ + 2×40G QSFP uplinks (highest port density)

1. Native 40G QSFP uplink ports for high-speed backbone trunking, supporting VSL VSS inter-switch links at 40G line rate
2. Expanded routing tables, TCAM and Flexible NetFlow scale optimized for MPLS and virtualization workloads
3. Front-to-back cold-aisle compliant airflow, fully compatible with modern data center hot/cold aisle containment
4. Unified IOS 15SX with native MPLS, VPLS, EVPN readiness, full hardware IPv6 acceleration and TrustSec security
5. VSS multi-chassis virtualization to pair two WS-C6840-X into a single logical redundant core with SSO/NSF/ISSU zero-downtime maintenance
6. OIR hot-swap power supplies and fan trays with single-fan fault tolerance without traffic loss

Model Suffix Breakdown

• WS-C: Cisco Catalyst LAN Switch Platform Identifier
• 6840-X: Catalyst 6800-X fixed backbone series, 40 native 10G SFP/SFP+ ports + dual 40G QSFP uplinks
• LE: Low-latency enterprise/service provider feature set with expanded forwarding tables and MPLS support

Chassis Port Layout Definition

1. Front Panel Downlink Ports: 40×dual-speed SFP/SFP+ slots supporting 1000BASE-SX/LX Gigabit or 10G SFP+ SR/LR/ER/ZR fiber transceivers
2. Front Dedicated Uplink Slots: 2×native QSFP 40G slots for 40GBASE-SR4/LR4 fiber trunks (VSS inter-switch links, core backbone uplinks)
3. Out-of-Band Management Interfaces:
   • RJ45 RS232 serial console port
   • Mini USB console port
   • Isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management port
   • External USB Type-A flash storage slot for IOS image upgrades and configuration backup archives
4. Front Diagnostic LED Bank: System status, power (PS1/PS2), fan tray, port link/activity, fault alarm, UID beacon indicators
5. Rear Compartment Layout: Dual independent hot-swappable power supply bays + integrated 4-piece variable-speed hot-swap fan tray assembly
6. Airflow Specification: Front-to-back cold air intake at port panel, hot air exhausted from rear power supply compartment (cold aisle optimized burgundy color coding; no reversed F airflow variant for this model)

Supported Transceivers & Power Options

1. 1G/10G optical transceivers: All Cisco SFP, SFP+ copper/fiber modules
2. 40G uplink transceivers: QSFP-40G-SR4/LR4/ER4 fiber modules
3. Power supply variants: 1100W AC hot-swap PSU, 1100W –48V DC telecom negative power PSU
4. No PoE support; purpose-built for fiber backbone, server and virtualization aggregation workloads

3. Hardware & Physical Specifications

Core Switching & Routing Performance

• Single-chassis non-blocking fabric capacity: 960 Gbps full-duplex
• Wire-speed forwarding rate: 720 Mpps Layer 2 bridging, hardware CEF IPv4 and full hardware IPv6 routing
• Dynamic shared packet buffer pool: 32 MB low-latency global buffer for bursty virtualization and video traffic
• System memory: 4 GB high-speed SDRAM, 4 GB internal flash storage, expandable via external USB flash
• MAC address table capacity: 131,072 MAC entries
• Routing table scale: IPv4 256,000 CEF FIB routes; IPv6 128,000 hardware forwarding routes
• TCAM ACL/QoS/security flow entries: 64,000 concurrent shared TCAM entries
• Flexible NetFlow v9 scale: Up to 1.5 million concurrent flow records system-wide
• Maximum VLANs: 4094 standard 802.1Q tagged VLANs, ISL trunking supported for legacy interoperability
• SVI routed inter-VLAN interfaces: Up to 4094 SVIs
• Jumbo frame MTU support: Up to 9216 bytes for bridged and routed traffic
• Link aggregation: Gigabit EtherChannel (GEC), 10GE EtherChannel, 40GE EtherChannel; maximum 8 ports per logical bundle
• VSS dual-chassis combined fabric capacity: 1.92 Tbps full-duplex non-blocking

Power & Cooling System

• Power supply bays: 2 hot-swappable redundant slots enabling 1+1 N+1 power failover protection
• AC input voltage range: 100–240V 50/60Hz; optional –48V DC telecom negative power input
• Fan tray: Integrated 4 variable-speed hot-swappable fan assembly with individual fan fault detection; single fan failure triggers SNMP alert without throughput degradation
• Airflow direction: Front-to-back cold aisle intake, rear hot exhaust
• Real-time hardware monitoring: Fan RPM, internal chassis temperature, PSU voltage, module and transceiver fault logging via console syslog and SNMP v1/v2c/v3 traps

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Rack form factor: 2 RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 8.89 cm × 44.5 cm × 46.0 cm (3.5 × 17.5 × 18.1 inches)
• Bare chassis weight: 18.1 kg (40 lbs) without power supplies; fully loaded max weight 22.7 kg (50 lbs) with dual PSUs and full transceivers installed
• Operating temperature range: 0°C to 40°C (32°F–104°F); certified altitude up to 2000 meters
• Storage temperature range: -20°C to 65°C (-4°F–149°F)
• Relative humidity: 5%–90% non-condensing operating; 5%–95% non-condensing storage
• Compliance Certifications: FCC Class A, UL 60950-1, CE, VCCI Class A, NEBS Level 3, RoHS compliant
• MTBF: 380,000 hours under standard data center operating conditions

4. Full Layer 2 & Layer 3 IOS Feature Set (Cisco IOS 15SX Universal Image)

Layer 2 Switching Features

• IEEE 802.1D STP, 802.1w Rapid STP, 802.1s MSTP multi-instance spanning tree (10,000 MST instances)
• 802.1Q trunking + ISL legacy trunk encapsulation, DTP dynamic trunk negotiation
• VTP v1/v2/v3 VLAN Trunking Protocol, Private VLAN host isolation, Q-in-Q VLAN stacking for service provider multi-tenant segmentation
• Port security, static/dynamic secure MAC address learning, MAC address filtering
• 802.3ad LACP standard EtherChannel link aggregation across 1G/10G/40G ports
• Broadcast/multicast/unicast storm suppression per physical port
• IGMPv1/v2/v3 snooping, CGMP for VoIP and IPTV multicast traffic optimization
• Voice VLAN auto-detection for Cisco IP phone uplink aggregation
• Local SPAN, RSPAN, ESPAN enhanced remote traffic mirroring (8 bidirectional wire-speed monitoring sessions)
• 802.3x full-duplex flow control for congestion management

Layer 3 Routing & Multicast Features (IP Base / IP Services License)

• Static routing, RIP v1/v2, multi-area OSPFv2, EIGRP, BGPv4/BGPv6 inter-domain routing protocols
• Wire-speed hardware CEF SVI inter-VLAN routing for native IPv4 and fully hardware-accelerated IPv6
• Full MPLS service suite (core differentiation from Catalyst 4900 series): MPLS LDP, VPLS, VPWS, EVPN readiness, MPLS VPN IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack
• PIM-DM / PIM-SM / PIM-SSM IP multicast routing, MSDP inter-domain multicast support
• ECMP equal-cost multi-path load balancing across mixed 1G/10G/40G uplink trunks
• Policy-Based Routing (PBR) enabled with IP Services IOS license
• Multi-VRF Lite multi-tenant network segmentation for enterprise and service provider PoP deployments
• VSS Virtual Switching System: Pair two WS-C6840-X chassis via 40G VSL links into a single logical redundant switch supporting SSO Stateful Switchover, NSF Nonstop Forwarding and ISSU In-Service Software Upgrade for zero-downtime core firmware maintenance

Advanced MQC QoS & Traffic Prioritization

• Hierarchical Modular QoS Command-Line (MQC) policy framework for granular end-to-end traffic control
• 8 hardware egress priority queues per physical port, bidirectional 802.1p CoS / IP DSCP mapping and re-marking
• Ingress traffic policing, egress bandwidth shaping, packet marking and reclassification
• Pre-built Auto-QoS optimized templates for VoIP telephony, 4K video conferencing and IP surveillance streams
• Dedicated expedite voice priority queue for low-latency real-time unified communications traffic

Enterprise & Service Provider Security Suite

• IEEE 802.1X port-based NAC authentication with RADIUS/TACACS+ AAA identity management
• DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI), IP Source Guard, uRPF anti-spoofing protection
• Hardware-accelerated Port ACL, VLAN ACL (VACL), Route ACL traffic filtering
• IEEE 802.1AE MACsec link encryption on all 10G/40G fiber uplink ports
• SSHv2 encrypted CLI remote management, SNMPv3 secure monitoring, encrypted startup configuration files
• Control Plane Policing (CoPP) to protect supervisor control CPU from DDoS flood attacks
• Cisco TrustSec security group tagging for end-to-end policy segmentation across campus and data center domains
• Integrated security compatibility for external firewall, IDS/IPS and load balancer service appliances

Monitoring & Management Tools

• Flexible NetFlow v9 full wire-speed flow export for deep application visibility and traffic analytics (up to 1.5M concurrent flows)
• Isolated out-of-band Ethernet management port for offline device access during production outages
• USB flash storage for offline IOS image upgrades, configuration backup archives and syslog export
• Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) for automatic neighbor device discovery
• Smart Install zero-touch automated mass switch provisioning
• Cisco EnergyWise power efficiency monitoring to reduce idle port power consumption
• Real-time environmental telemetry and fault alerting via SNMP, email and syslog

5. High Availability Capabilities (Core Differentiators vs Legacy Catalyst 6500 Non-E / 4948E)

1. Dual hot-swappable high-wattage 1100W AC/DC redundant power supplies (1+1 power failover protection, stable under full 40×10G + 2×40G port load)
2. Four redundant variable-speed hot-swappable fan tray with individual fan fault detection and real-time SNMP fault alerting
3. Full OIR Online Insertion and Removal support for fan tray, power supplies and optical transceivers; live FRU replacement without chassis power shutdown
4. VSS multi-chassis virtual switching with sub-second Layer 2/Layer 3 convergence, SSO, NSF and ISSU zero-downtime firmware upgrades (exclusive to Catalyst 6800-X series)
5. Front-to-back cold-aisle optimized airflow eliminating hot air recirculation issues of side-to-side legacy 6500/4948 chassis
6. Expanded routing tables, TCAM and Flexible NetFlow scale optimized for MPLS, virtualization and medium data center leaf-spine architectures
7. Native 40G QSFP uplink ports for high-speed VSL inter-switch links and core backbone trunking (legacy 4948E limited to 10G X2 uplinks)

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Medium Enterprise Data Center Top-of-Rack Leaf Switch
   40×10G copper/fiber downlinks connect server racks, storage arrays and virtualization hosts; dual native 40G QSFP uplinks create flexible leaf-spine architectures with VSS multi-switch virtualization for mission-critical enterprise data center east-west traffic workloads.
2. Large Multi-Building Enterprise Campus Core Aggregation Switch
   Compact 2RU rack form factor delivers high-density 10G aggregation and native 40G backbone uplinks; VSS paired WS-C6840-X switches eliminate single point of failure for multi-building campus backbone, aggregating dozens of Catalyst 9300/3850 PoE access switches and supporting campus-wide IPTV unified communications, wireless mobility domains and centralized 4K surveillance.
3. Large Regional Mission-Critical Branch / Government Headquarters Core Switch
   Financial, healthcare and government remote branch networks require complete supervisor, power and cooling redundancy to avoid catastrophic site-wide outages; integrates MPLS metro Ethernet WAN aggregation, inter-VLAN routing and high-density PoE access trunk consolidation in a space-efficient 2RU chassis without oversized modular 6509-E rack footprint.
4. Service Provider Small/Mid-Size PoP Edge Aggregation Switch
   Native full MPLS/VPLS/EVPN feature set makes the WS-C6840-X ideal for carrier PoP edge deployments, terminating 10G customer access circuits and 40G core backbone trunks with large routing tables to support hundreds of enterprise VPN customers.
5. Modular Catalyst 6509-E / 6880-X Campus Core Uplink Expansion Companion
   Deployed as a high-density 10G/40G uplink aggregation companion switch to expand fiber backbone port capacity for flagship modular Catalyst 6800/6500-E campus core chassis, matching unified IOS feature compatibility for consistent network management.

7. Standard Package Contents

Items Sold Separately (Not Included)

• 1100W AC or DC hot-swappable redundant power supply units (airflow-specific PSUs non-interchangeable with reversed F-variant chassis)
• SFP (1G) / SFP+ (10G) / QSFP (40G) optical fiber transceivers for all uplink and downlink slots
• RS232 serial console rollover cable, mini USB console cable
• USB flash memory sticks for IOS image and configuration storage
• Fiber patch cords, cable management accessories, rack cable guides

Short Commercial Catalog Version (For Quotation & Datasheet Use)