Cisco C1-N5K-C5548P-FA Full Product Description

Critical Clarification

There is no separate hardware chassis PN namedC1-N5K-C5548P-FAon Cisco’s official hardware datasheet. The prefixC1-is theCisco ONE unified software license bundle identifier, while the underlying physical hardware chassis is the standard factory pre-populated switchN5K-C5548P-FA.

Physical hardware: N5K-C5548P-FA (1RU preloaded dual 750W AC power, dual front-to-back fans, 32×SFP+ 1/10G FCoE ports, 1 expansion slot)
C1 prefix: C1-N5548 base Cisco ONE all-in-one feature license permanently bound to this chassis, pre-licensed at factory.

This full combination (hardware + factory embedded C1 ONE software suite) is referred to as C1-N5K-C5548P-FA in tender, quotation and inventory documents.

1. Short Overview

Cisco C1-N5K-C5548P-FA is a factory pre-licensed unified fabric ToR switch solution combining the N5K-C5548P-FA 1RU 10G FCoE chassis and permanent C1-N5548 Cisco ONE full feature license. The chassis ships factory pre-equipped with dual hot-swappable 750W AC power supplies, two redundant front-to-back airflow fan trays, 32 fixed SFP+ 1/10G FCoE/Ethernet ports and one rear expansion module slot. It delivers a 960 Gbps non-blocking cut-through crossbar, ultra-low latency lossless DCB/FCoE storage convergence, Nexus 2000 FEX leaf extender support, full L2/L3 routing (via optional N55-DL2 daughter card), SAN zoning and unified storage-Ethernet fabric consolidation. The embedded C1 ONE license unlocks all required feature packs without separate license purchases. The entire Nexus 5500 series reached End-of-Sale Sep 25, 2016; official hardware support has expired.

2. Suffix Breakdown & Component Composition

Full Identifier Decoding

C1: Cisco ONE all-in-one perpetual unified fabric feature license bundle (C1-N5548)
N5K: Nexus 5500 next-gen 10G unified FCoE data center switch family
C5548P: Base 32-port 1RU Nexus 5548P hardware chassis; P = fixed SFP+ fiber-only ports (no universal FC port switching)
FA: Front-to-Back airflow (cold inlet front, hot exhaust rear, standard cold/hot aisle data center design)

Factory Pre-Integrated Hardware Included

N5K-C5548P 1RU passive midplane chassis
Two N55-PAC-750W 750W AC hot-swappable redundant power supplies (N+1 power redundancy)
Two N5548P-FAN front-to-back hot-swappable fan trays (N+1 cooling redundancy)
32 fixed dual-speed SFP+ 1G/10G FCoE/Ethernet front ports
One rear OIR hot-swappable expansion module slot
Full management interface set: RJ45 serial console, dual 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet, USB diagnostic flash port
Pre-flashed permanent C1-N5548 Cisco ONE full feature license stored in chassis internal flash
Standard rack mounting rails, cable management brackets, hardware installation documentation

Items Not Included (Must Be Ordered Separately)

SFP+/SFP optical transceivers, Twinax copper DAC cables for all fixed and expansion ports
N55-M series expansion modules (Ethernet/FCoE hybrid or native Fibre Channel uplink cards)
N55-DL2 Layer 3 routing daughter card (required to enable hardware L3 forwarding)
Optional accessories: Lockable front door, extended cable management kit, air filter panel

3. Core Hardware Port & Slot Layout (Hardware identical to N5K-C5548P-FA)

Front Panel Fixed Ports (32 × SFP+ 1/10G)

All 32 SFP+ ports support dual-speed 1G/10G SFP/SFP+, native lossless FCoE, IEEE DCB standards (802.1Qbb PFC priority flow control, 802.1Qaz ETS enhanced transmission selection) for unified storage-Ethernet traffic convergence. Ports cannot switch to native Fibre Channel mode (distinction vs 5548UP).

Rear Single Expansion Module Slot (1 OIR hot-swappable slot)

Supported N55-M expansion modules:

N55-M1604: 6×10G SFP+ FCoE/Ethernet uplink module
N5K-M1404: 4×8G FC + 4×10G FCoE/Ethernet hybrid storage module
N55-M8FC: 8×4G/2G/1G native Fibre Channel module
N55-M6FC: 6×8G/4G/2G/1G high-speed native Fibre Channel module

Rear Power & Fan Subsystems

Dual factory pre-installed N55-PAC-750W AC power supply bays (OIR hot-swap replaceable)
Two pre-installed hot-swappable multi-fan trays (front-to-back airflow, single fan tray fault triggers SNMP alert without traffic shutdown)

Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

RJ45 RS232 serial console port for local CLI configuration
Dual independent 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band management Ethernet ports
USB Type-A flash port for NX-OS firmware upgrades, running configuration backup and offline diagnostics

Front Panel LED Status Array

Global chassis health, power supply A/B status, dual fan tray fault indicators, expansion module health, 32 SFP+ port link activity, hardware critical fault alarm, UID locator beacon LED

4. Hardware Performance Specifications

Full non-blocking crossbar fabric aggregate bandwidth: 960 Gbps full-duplex
Wire-speed Layer 2 forwarding throughput: 720 Mpps at maximum 10G port speed
Cut-through switching latency: ~3 microseconds for standard data center packets
Layer 2 MAC address table base capacity: 32,000 entries (C1 license includes XL extended scale)
Maximum VLAN segmentation: 4094 VLANs per logical partition
Port-channel limit: 1024 LACP logical trunk bundles, maximum 16 physical ports per vPC/ISL bundle
Maximum supported Nexus 2000 FEX fabric extenders: 24 FEX leaf units (XL scale unlocked via C1 ONE license)
Native ASIC hardware offload suite:
- Complete lossless FCoE stack: PFC priority flow control, ETS bandwidth allocation, VNTag, FC-NVMe low-latency tunneling
- OTV cross-data-center overlay encapsulation, LISP endpoint mapping for multi-pod workload mobility
- FCIP tunnel compression, write acceleration, tape pipelining for long-distance disaster recovery backup replication
- DMM non-disruptive data migration, IOA storage I/O acceleration, real-time streaming telemetry export

Physical & Environmental Parameters

Rack form factor: 1 RU (4.37 cm height), standard 19-inch EIA horizontal rack
Dimensions (H × W × D): 4.37 cm × 43.9 cm × 76.2 cm; extended depth 88.6cm with cable management kit installed
Pre-populated chassis weight (2×AC PSUs + two fan trays, no expansion modules/transceivers): ~13.2 kg (29 lbs)
Fully loaded maximum weight (dual AC PSUs + two fan trays + one expansion module): ~15.9 kg (35 lbs)
Operating ambient temperature range: 0°C ~ 40°C (32°F ~ 104°F); certified altitude up to 3000m
Storage temperature range: -40°C ~ 70°C (-40°F to 158°F)
Relative humidity: 8%–80% non-condensing operating; 5%–90% non-condensing storage
Compliance certifications: FCC Class A, UL 60950-1, CE, VCCI Class A, NEBS Level 3, GR63 seismic Zone 4, RoHS 6, FIPS 140-2 Level 1 validated

N55-PAC-750W AC Power Supply Spec (Factory Pre-Installed)

Input: 100–240V AC universal alternating current, 50/60Hz

Rated output power: 750W per single PSU; typical full-load chassis draw ~680W with L3 daughter card installed

Hot-swappable OIR replacement, N+1 redundant power protection architecture

5. C1-N5548 Cisco ONE Full Feature License Included (Key Advantage vs bare N5K-C5548P-FA)

The embedded C1 ONE license unlocks all feature suites permanently, no separate license purchase required:

XL Extended Scale: 32,000 MAC entries, 24 FEX support, expanded route/ACL tables
FCoE Enabler: Full VSAN, WWN zoning, NPV/NPIV, FCIP, DMM storage migration
Layer 3 Routing Suite: OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, VRF, IVR inter-VSAN routing (requires N55-DL2 daughter card hardware)
Data Center Interconnect: OTV, LISP workload mobility across geographically separated data centers
Carrier MPLS Suite: LDP, VPLS, VPWS, EVPN-FC multi-tenant transport
Security Suite: FIPS 140-2, TrustSec, advanced ACL, audit logging
Management Suite: Full DCNM SAN/Ethernet management, streaming telemetry, Python API automation

6. Full NX-OS Feature Set Supported (C1 License Enables All Functions)

Layer 2 Ethernet & Converged FCoE Storage Fabric

Single default VDC architecture (Nexus 5500 series does not support multiple independent VDC partitions)
802.1Q VLAN tagging, PVLAN private VLAN anti-spoofing isolation
MSTP multi-instance spanning tree, vPC dual-active peer-link redundancy for storage/Ethernet uplinks
Complete lossless FCoE protocol stack: VSAN virtual storage fabrics, hard WWN zoning, Auto-Zone automatic fabric provisioning, FC-NVMe low-latency forwarding
NPV/NPIV FCoE edge virtualization to offload upstream MDS SAN director control-plane load
Slow drain detection and buffer credit congestion isolation hardware feature to eliminate packet loss for lossless storage traffic
POAP Power On Auto Provisioning zero-touch automatic switch provisioning for mass rack rollouts
Extended FEX support (24 FEX units) unlocked by C1 XL license

Multilayer Routing & Cross-Data Center Interconnect (L3 daughter card mandatory)

Dynamic IPv4/IPv6 routing protocols: OSPF, EIGRP, BGP (fully unlocked via C1 license)
VRF virtual routing and forwarding multi-tenant Layer 3 isolation
Licensed IVR Inter-VSAN Routing for secure cross-storage-fabric data forwarding
OTV Overlay Transport Virtualization: Layer 2 workload mobility across geographically separated disaster recovery data centers
LISP Locator/ID Separation Protocol: Multi-pod workload mobility and distributed data center interconnection
Full carrier-grade MPLS suite: LDP, VPLS, VPWS, EVPN-FC dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 multi-tenant transport
FCIP tunnel hardware acceleration: Lossless compression, write acceleration, tape pipelining for long-distance off-site tape backup replication
iSCSI multi-protocol gateway processing via M-series expansion 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 east-west traffic, management and backup streams
Ingress frame policing and egress bandwidth shaping to throttle low-priority tape backup and replication traffic
Pre-built QoS templates optimized for 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 over 10G SFP+ ports

Enterprise & Service Provider Security Suite

Port security: Static MAC locking to block unauthorized physical server/storage device attachment
RBAC granular multi-tier administrative access control, integrated with Cisco ISE identity services engine
SSHv2 encrypted remote management, SNMPv3 secure monitoring, AES encrypted startup configurations, DH-CHAP FCoE inter-fabric link authentication
Port lockdown, VSAN read-only access permissions, complete audit logging for all fabric configuration changes
FIPS 140-2 Level 1 compliance for government and financial regulated enterprise deployments
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 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 production traffic interruption
Onboard Python interpreter + NX-API REST interfaces for custom data center automation scripts

7. Typical Deployment Scenarios for C1-N5K-C5548P-FA (Pre-Licensed One-Chassis Solution)

Small/medium virtualized data center ToR top-of-rack aggregation core: Pre-integrated dual power + dual fan hardware redundancy + full C1 ONE license eliminates separate license procurement, 32×10G ports connect Nexus 2000 FEX leaf extenders and small-scale all-flash NVMe FCoE storage arrays
Medium enterprise campus edge converged LAN/SAN switch: Front-to-back airflow fits standard cold aisle racks, full OTV/LISP/MPLS feature set built-in for multi-building interconnection and cross-site disaster recovery replication
Small financial/mainframe zSystems converged storage core: Native FCoE + FICON compatibility enabled via C1 license, dual AC power + dual fan hardware redundancy removes single power/cooling failure risks
Small MPLS service provider multi-tenant metro PoP edge gateway: Full MPLS/EVPN carrier feature suite pre-licensed, VLAN/VSAN multi-tenant isolation separates independent customer LAN/SAN fabrics
Legacy Nexus 5000 fabric migration all-in-one upgrade: Single SKU covers chassis, power, cooling and full permanent feature license, backward compatible with existing 10G SFP transceivers
Centralized small enterprise tape library backup fabric aggregation core: Dedicated backup SAN aggregation switch utilizing multi-port FCIP PortChannel trunks to primary production FCoE SAN fabrics for asynchronous off-site tape archive replication workloads

8. Standard Package Contents of C1-N5K-C5548P-FA Factory Solution Bundle

1 × N5K-C5548P Nexus 5548P 1RU modular switch chassis (front-to-back airflow)

2 × N55-PAC-750W 750W AC hot-swappable redundant power supply units (factory pre-installed)

2 × N5548P-FAN front-to-back hot-swappable multi-fan cooling trays (factory pre-installed)

Permanent embedded C1-N5548 Cisco ONE full feature license flashed to chassis internal storage

19-inch standard 19-inch rack mounting rails, front cable management brackets

Cisco hardware installation guide, global safety & compliance documentation

Separately Mandatory Components (Not Included in This Bundle)

Optional N55-M series expansion line/service modules for single rear expansion slot
SFP+/QSFP+ optical fiber transceivers for all base Ethernet/FCoE port interfaces (backward compatible with legacy 1G SFP transceivers)
Optional N55-DL2 Layer 3 routing daughter card (to enable hardware Layer 3 forwarding capability)
RS232 serial console rollover cable, mini USB console cable, fiber/copper patch cords, rack cable management accessories, locking front door, air filter kit

Short Commercial Catalog Summary for Quotation

Cisco C1-N5K-C5548P-FA is an End-of-Sale all-in-one factory pre-licensed solution combining the N5K-C5548P-FA 1RU unified FCoE data center ToR switch hardware plus permanent C1-N5548 Cisco ONE full feature license. The physical chassis ships pre-populated with dual 750W AC power supplies and two front-to-back airflow fan trays, 32 fixed SFP+ 1/10G FCoE/Ethernet front ports and one empty rear expansion slot; expansion modules, optical transceivers and L3 daughter card must be ordered separately. It uses a 960 Gbps non-blocking cut-through crossbar fabric, runs NX-OS 5.x/6.x with all storage, routing, DCI and carrier feature suites permanently unlocked via embedded C1 license, delivers VDC multi-tenant logical switching, lossless FCoE storage convergence, OTV cross-data-center overlay, LISP workload mobility and full OIR hot-swap maintenance support. Optimized for small/medium virtualized data center top-of-rack aggregation and medium enterprise campus edge deployments requiring one-stop hardware + full license procurement, featuring mainstream front-to-back cold aisle airflow design, limited by single expansion slot ceiling, legacy maximum 10G-only port hardware generation and end-of-sale status with all official hardware support expired. Compliant with global safety, EMI, NEBS Level 3 and RoHS industrial standards.


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