Cisco N77-C7702 (Nexus 7702) Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

2. Official Lifecycle & Chassis Definition

• Bare chassis PN:N77-C7702(empty frame with integrated fan tray; supervisors, power supplies, I/O line cards, transceivers sold separately)
• Bundled variants: N77-C7702-S2E-AC (1×Sup2E + dual AC power preloaded)
• EOL Timeline: EOS Oct 12, 2023; Final Hardware Support Oct 31, 2028

Core Hardware Differentiators vs Larger Nexus 7706 / 7710 / 7718

1. Ultra-compact 3RU rack height (7706=9RU, 7710=14RU, 7718=26RU), only two front slots total:1 dedicated half-slot supervisor slot + 1 full universal I/O line card slot(max one I/O module loaded, peak 48×100G ports).
2. No external rear crossbar fabric modules: Distributed fabric ASICs embedded inside I/O line card and supervisor, simplified chassis maintenance, reduces spare inventory (large 7700 chassis use 6 independent rear crossbar modules).
3. Single integrated hot-swappable fan tray (large 7706/7710 use triple dual fan trays for layered cooling).
4. Dual 3000W Platinum power supply slots (1+1 N+1 redundancy; 7710 supports up to eight PSUs for octal redundancy).
5. Front-to-back standard cold aisle airflow (no hot-aisle reverse airflow variant).
6. Unified Nexus 7700 Gen3 module compatibility: F3/M3 10/40/100G I/O line cards, Sup2E/Sup3E supervisors fully interchangeable with larger Nexus 7700 chassis to cut spare inventory cost.
7. Complete converged LAN+SAN hardware offload: Lossless PFC/DCBX FCoE, FC-NVMe low-latency tunneling, full FICON mainframe storage integration without external gateways.
8. Full OIR hot-swap for all FRUs: supervisor, I/O line card, power supplies, fan tray without chassis power cycle for zero service interruption.

Core High-Availability Design

Model Suffix Breakdown

• N77: Nexus 7700 next-gen 100G modular data center switch platform prefix
• C7702: Bare empty 2-slot front chassis (1 full I/O line card slot + 1 half-slot supervisor slot)
• K9: Standard AC power SKU with full NX-OS enterprise/carrier feature license (base bare chassis N77-C7702 has no K9 suffix)
• Airflow fixed front-to-back cold intake (no separate E hot-aisle exhaust chassis variant)

3. Chassis Slot & Hardware Layout Definition

Front Panel 2 Horizontal Slots (3RU 19-inch rack)

1. Slot 1: One full universal hot-swappable I/O line/service module slot (F3/M3 10/40/100G Ethernet/FCoE switching cards, DS-X9334 FCIP multi-protocol extension modules, SSM encryption/asynchronous replication service modules)
2. Slot 2: Dedicated half-slot Supervisor-2E / Supervisor-3E fabric control module slot (only one supervisor slot built into chassis, no second redundant supervisor bays on N77-C7702)

Rear Panel Redundant Subsystems

1. Two independent hot-swappable 3000W power supply bays supporting AC or DC high-voltage power modules
2. Single integrated hot-swappable multi-fan variable-speed fan tray embedded into bare chassis (included with N77-C7702 base chassis)

Out-of-Band Management Interfaces (each Supervisor module carries full management ports)

• RJ45 RS232 serial console port for local CLI access
• Mini USB dual local console port for laptop zero-cable administration
• Dual isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management ports (separate SAN analytics export dedicated interface)
• External USB Type-A flash storage slot for NX-OS image upgrades, configuration backup and syslog export
• Physical reset button for factory default configuration recovery

Front Global Diagnostic LED Bank

Airflow Specification

Supported Transceivers & Pluggable Modules

1. Ethernet/FCoE optical transceivers (sold separately for all line card ports):
   • SFP+: 10G-SR/LR/ER for 10G Ethernet / lossless FCoE storage traffic
   • QSFP+: 40G-SR4/LR4 for 40G Ethernet / long-distance ISL trunk links
   • QSFP28: 100G-SR4/LR4 for 100G high-density uplink/host ports
   • Backward compatible with legacy 1G SFP transceivers for existing access switch interoperation
2. Supported pluggable I/O line/service modules for Slot 1:
   • N77-F348XP-23: 48×10G SFP+ high-density F3 series line card (max 48×10G ports full chassis)
   • N77-F324FQ-25: 24×40G QSFP+ F3 series line card (max 24×40G ports full chassis)
   • N77-F312CK-26: 12×100G QSFP28 F3 maximum-density line card (max 12×100G ports full chassis)
   • N77-M348XP-23L: 48×10G M3 mixed-feature line card with L4-L7 service offload, FCIP/iSCSI multi-protocol gateway capability
   • SSM Storage Services Module: Inline tape/media encryption, asynchronous cross-fabric replication, SAN performance analytics
3. Supervisor module compatibility: Supervisor-2E (N77-SUP2E), Supervisor-3E (N77-SUP3E upgraded larger memory, enhanced FCoE telemetry NPU, Secure Boot)
4. Power supply compatibility: 3000W Platinum AC PEM modules (N77-AC-3KW-WS), 3000W DC PEM telecom modules (N77-DC-3KW-WS), 3.5kW HV HVDC power supplies (N77-HV-3.5KW-WS), non-interchangeable between AC/HV chassis variants

4. Hardware & Physical Performance Specifications

Core Switching & Routing Performance

• Single-chassis distributed fabric maximum aggregate bandwidth: 1.32 Tbps full-duplex system-wide bandwidth
• Wire-speed frame forwarding rate: Up to 1320 Mpps Ethernet frame switching at full 100G line rate
• Low-latency shared packet buffer pool per line card, dedicated buffer credit allocation for lossless FCoE storage traffic
• MAC address table capacity: 128,000 MAC entries
• IPv4 unicast route table capacity: 128,000 entries; IPv6 unicast: 64,000 entries; multicast routes: 32,000 entries
• Maximum isolated VDC virtual switch contexts: 4 independent logical switch partitions
• Maximum active port-channel bundles: 1024 PortChannels, max 16 ports per logical trunk with dynamic load balancing
• Supported Ethernet port operating modes: Access, Trunk, FCoE, vPC peer-link, ISL inter-switch trunk, FEX host interface
• NPV/NPIV native hardware acceleration: Lossless FCoE forwarding for SAN-LAN convergence, offload Fibre Channel fabric registration to upstream MDS directors without core fabric control-plane overhead
• Native multi-protocol ASIC hardware offload: FC-NVMe ultra-low-latency frame processing, FCoE lossless frame processing, FCoE PFC/DCBX/VNTag, FCIP write acceleration, tape pipelining, FCIP compression, DMM non-disruptive data migration, IOA I/O acceleration, onboard NPU real-time SAN telemetry streaming

Power & Cooling System

• Power supply bays: 2 hot-swappable redundant slots, each 3000W AC PSU fully powers complete chassis independently (1+1 failover protection)
• AC input voltage range: 100–240V AC (10% tolerance), 50/60Hz universal auto-ranging alternating current, 80 Plus Platinum high efficiency
• Fan tray: Integrated multi-fan variable-speed assembly built into bare chassis; minimum full tray functional to avoid thermal shutdown, single fan failure triggers SNMP fault alert
• Real-time telemetry monitoring: Fan rotational speed, internal chassis ambient temperature, PSU input/output voltage, SFP optical transmit power, port error counters and module fault logging via console syslog and SNMP v1/v2c/v3 traps; critical thermal alarm threshold at 55°C
• Typical full-load power draw: 160W fully populated with one 48-port 100G line card + single supervisor module under maximum traffic load
• MTBF: 240,000 hours under standard enterprise data center operating conditions

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Rack form factor: 3 RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 13.08 cm × 44.45 cm × 73.9 cm (3 rack units, 17.5 × 29.1 inch depth; extended depth 86.3cm with cable management guide installed)
• Bare chassis weight: 17 kg (37.5 lbs) without power supplies/line cards/supervisors; fully loaded maximum weight 26 kg (57 lbs) with dual PSUs, single fan tray, one 48-port 100G line card and one supervisor module installedCisco
• Operating ambient temperature range: 0°C to 40°C (32°F–104°F); certified altitude up to 2000 meters
• Storage temperature range: -40°C to 70°C (-40°F–158°F)
• Relative humidity: 10%–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 per regional environmental regulations, FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validated

Control Plane Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

• Dual local CLI access per supervisor: RJ45 RS232 serial port + Mini USB console port
• Dual isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management ports
• External USB flash storage for offline NX-OS firmware and configuration archives
• Front panel multi-status LED bank providing real-time hardware health visualization

5. Full NX-OS Multilayer Feature Set (Cisco NX-OS MDS Release 8.x / 9.x Universal Image)

Layer 2 Ethernet & Converged FCoE Fabric Services

• VDC Virtual Device Context: Logical virtual switch partitioning to isolate multi-tenant LAN/SAN workloads on single physical chassis
• Standard VLAN segmentation (4094 VLANs per VDC), PVLAN private VLAN isolation
• Dual zoning models for FCoE: VSAN virtual storage fabric segmentation, hard WWN zoning + Autozone automatic fabric zoning
• Complete FCoE protocol stack support: Lossless PFC priority flow control, DCBX, VNTag virtual machine storage I/O tracking, FC-NVMe tunneling
• Inter-Switch Link (ISL) trunk PortChannel load balancing across mixed 10G/40G/100G Ethernet port speeds (max 16-port bundles)
• DTP dynamic trunk negotiation, MSTP multi-instance spanning tree protocol for Layer 2 loop prevention
• Local SPAN, RSPAN remote traffic mirroring for multi-session performance troubleshooting
• Per-port broadcast/multicast storm suppression to eliminate fabric-wide RSCN broadcast outages
• NPV N_Port Virtualizer edge switch mode for large-scale core-edge SAN-LAN convergence architecture deployment
• Slow drain detection and congestion isolation hardware feature to mitigate buffer credit starvation for lossless FCoE traffic
• POAP Power On Auto Provisioning zero-touch switch deployment for mass pod rack rollouts

Multilayer Routing & Multi-Protocol Data Center Interconnect Features

• FSPF Fibre Channel Shortest Path First dynamic SAN fabric routing for distributed storage topologies
• EIGRP / OSPF / BGP IPv4/IPv6 dynamic Layer 3 routing protocols for LAN workloads
• PIM-SM / PIM-SSM IP multicast for cross-fabric asynchronous backup replication traffic
• Static IP route configuration, VRF virtual routing and forwarding multi-tenant routing isolation
• Licensed IVR Inter-VSAN Routing feature for secure data transfer between isolated FCoE storage fabrics
• Complete carrier-grade MPLS service suite: MPLS LDP, VPLS, VPWS, EVPN-FC interoperability, MPLS VPN IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack
• OTV Overlay Transport Virtualization cross-data center layer 2 overlay for disaster recovery workload mobility
• LISP Locator/ID Separation Protocol for multi-pod workload mobility and DC interconnection
• FCIP tunnel hardware acceleration: lossless compression, write acceleration, tape pipelining for long-distance cross-site disaster recovery replication
• iSCSI multi-protocol gateway processing via DS-X9334 service modules for IP-attached server consolidation

Advanced QoS & Traffic Prioritization

• Four hardware priority queues per Ethernet / FCoE port for tiered classification of storage I/O, virtual machine data, management and backup traffic
• Ingress frame policing and egress bandwidth shaping to throttle low-priority tape backup and replication streams
• Pre-built QoS templates for production OLTP database workloads, all-flash NVMe storage, virtual server east-west traffic, tape backup archives, and disaster recovery replication
• Dedicated high-priority traffic queue for low-latency real-time unified communications and enterprise database workloads
• DCBX media optimization for converged FCoE LAN/SAN traffic prioritization

Enterprise & Service Provider Security Suite

• Port security: Static MAC locking to block unauthorized physical server/storage device attachment
• RBAC Role-Based Access Control granular CLI user privilege partitioning, integrated with Cisco ISE identity services engine
• SSHv2 encrypted remote CLI management, SNMPv3 secure monitoring, AES encrypted startup configuration files
• DH-CHAP mutual bidirectional authentication for FCoE ISL inter-switch link fabric authentication
• Port lockdown, VDC / VSAN read-only access permissions, complete audit logging for all fabric configuration changes
• FIPS 140-2 validated security compliance for government and financial regulated environments
• Cisco TrustSec security group tagging for end-to-end policy segmentation across campus and data center domains
• IPv6 over Fibre Channel support for modern dual-stack management networks
• Secure Boot and anti-counterfeit hardware validation to prevent unauthorized firmware tampering

Monitoring & SAN/LAN Management Tools

• Cisco DCNM / Fabric Manager centralized graphical converged LAN/SAN fabric monitoring, provisioning and REST API automation
• Dual isolated out-of-band Ethernet management ports for offline device access during fabric-wide outages and analytics export
• External USB flash storage for offline NX-OS firmware image upgrades, running configuration backup archives and syslog export
• Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) automatic Nexus/MDS fabric neighbor device discovery
• Real-time storage/LAN telemetry: Port throughput, latency, frame error counters, SFP+ optical transmit power diagnostics, onboard NPU streaming analytics export
• Event notification via email, syslog and SNMP traps for real-time fabric fault alerting
• GOLD Generic Online Diagnostics continuous hardware health validation without traffic interruption
• Onboard Python interpreter + NX-API REST interfaces for custom data center automation scripts

6. High Availability Capabilities (Core Differentiators vs N77-C7706 Mid-Size 6-Slot Director)

1. Dual hot-swappable high-efficiency 3000W AC redundant power supplies (1+1 redundant architecture; N77-C7706 supports up to four PSUs with expanded power capacity)
2. Single integrated multi-fan tray with multi-fan fault tolerance (survive single fan tray failure without SAN outage; N77-C7706 uses three layered independent fan trays for higher cooling redundancy)
3. Embedded distributed fabric ASICs inside supervisor/I/O line cards delivering 1.32 Tbps full non-blocking bandwidth (N77-C7706 uses six external crossbar modules reaching 12.3 Tbps total throughput, far larger scale)
4. Single half-slot Supervisor-2E/3E control module (no second built-in supervisor slot; N77-C7706 dual redundant supervisor slots native to chassis)
5. Only one universal I/O line card expansion slot vs four on N77-C7706, limited maximum port density (12×100G vs 48×100G on 7706)
6. Full OIR hot-swap support for all critical FRUs: fan tray, power supplies, supervisor, single I/O line card without chassis power cycle
7. Front-to-back airflow design optimized for mainstream cold aisle rack deployments (shared airflow standard with all Nexus 7700 chassis)
8. Unified NX-OS software stack with native EVPN, OTV, LISP, VDC, FCoE and REST API automation features consistent with all Nexus 7700 family
9. Compact 3RU rack footprint ideal for small pod top-of-row core aggregation (N77-C7706 is 9RU, triple rack height for larger core deployments)
10. Limitation: Fixed single I/O slot ceiling with no expansion beyond one built-in line card bay, legacy maximum 100G Ethernet hardware generation, end-of-sale since Oct 12, 2023, hardware support expiring Oct 31, 2028.

7. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Small Virtualized Data Center Pod Core Switch
   Compact 3RU rack form factor deployed as pod top-of-row core aggregation switch; single 48-port 100G F3 line card populates the only I/O slot for 12 total 100G ports connecting distributed rack Nexus 2000 FEX leaf extenders, small-scale all-flash NVMe FCoE storage arrays and low-density blade server racks, VDC + VSAN segmentation isolates independent departmental production, test and backup converged LAN/SAN fabrics.
2. Medium Multi-Building Enterprise Campus Edge SAN-LAN Fabric
   Multiple N77-C7702 compact pod core switches deployed per building data center rack, utilizing mixed 10G/40G long-distance LR ISL trunk links to interconnect geographically distributed campus storage pods, built-in FCIP hardware offload provision asynchronous cross-site disaster recovery replication tunnels between primary and DR data centers.
3. Medium Regional Mission-Critical Headquarters Converged Storage/LAN Switch
   Financial, healthcare and government headquarters deployments require complete dual power + single integrated fan tray + single supervisor hardware redundancy, paired with a second N77-C7702 peer switch for dual-chassis HA to avoid site-wide catastrophic database and tape backup storage outages; integrated FICON-compatible FCoE support enables long-distance cross-site DR replication via FCIP tunnels, VDC multi-tenant isolation features support mixed enterprise and agency workloads in a single compact chassis.
4. Small-to-Medium Service Provider Multi-Tenant PoP Edge Switch
   Native full MPLS/VPLS/EVPN carrier-grade feature set and VDC multi-tenant logical switch isolation make N77-C7702 ideal for compact metro PoP edge deployments, terminating small-scale 10G/40G enterprise customer access circuits and multi-port ISL core backbone trunks to separate independent customer LAN/SAN fabrics, unused I/O slot reserved for future growth in customer port count and L4-L7 service M3 line card additions.
5. Legacy Small-Scale SAN-LAN Hardware Consolidation Migration Switch
   Drop-in performance upgrade for aging Nexus 5000 fixed FCoE switches, fully backward compatible with existing 10G SFP transceivers while unlocking 40G/100G high-density port expansion, VDC virtual multi-tenant partitioning and modern NX-OS cross-data center OTV/LISP automation workflows.
6. Centralized Small Enterprise Tape Library Backup Fabric Aggregation Core
   Deployed as dedicated backup SAN aggregation core switch, utilizing multi-port FCIP PortChannel trunk links to primary production FCoE SAN fabrics via asynchronous off-site tape archive and disaster recovery replication workloads, with unused I/O slot available for high-density host port expansion or M3 encryption/replication service line card additions as enterprise storage compliance requirements expand.

8. Standard Package Contents (Bare Chassis N77-C7702 Base SKU)

Items Sold Separately (Not Included in Bare Chassis N77-C7702)

• Dual 3000W Platinum AC hot-swappable redundant power supply units (DC telecom PSUs sold separately)
• One redundant Supervisor-2E or Supervisor-3E fabric control module (mandatory for chassis operation)
• Optional Nexus 7700 family pluggable I/O line/service modules (48-port 10/40/100G F3 switching module, N77-M3 multi-protocol FCIP/iSCSI L4-L7 service module, SSM storage encryption/replication module)
• SFP+/QSFP/QSFP28 optical fiber transceivers for all line card Ethernet/FCoE interfaces (backward compatible with legacy 1G SFP transceivers)
• Optional IVR Inter-VSAN Routing multilayer software license, FCIP SAN Extension Enabler license, Mainframe FCoE Enabler license, OTV Data Center Interconnect license
• RS232 serial console rollover cable, mini USB console cable
• USB flash memory sticks for NX-OS image and configuration storage
• Fibre channel patch cords, copper Ethernet patch cords, cable management accessories, rack cable guides

Short Commercial Catalog Summary (For Quotation & Datasheet Use)