Cisco N2K-C2224TP Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

• Core architecture: Stateless remote port extender, zero independent control plane; unified single-pane management via parent switch CLI/DCNM
• Fixed airflow design: Front-to-back cooling, compatible with standard hot/cold aisle data center rack layouts
• Built-in redundancy support: Hot-swappable dual AC power supplies and dual fan trays for non-stop production operation
• Fixed oversubscription ratio: 24G total host bandwidth vs 20G aggregate fabric uplink bandwidth, maximum 1.2:1 oversubscription with both uplinks active

2. Part Number Suffix Breakdown

1. N2K: Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender product family
2. C2224TP: 1RU compact FEX chassis model
   • 24 × 10/100/1000BASE-T copper host ports
   • T = Copper 1GBASE-T interfaces;P = Two SFP+ 10G fabric uplink ports
3. Fixed front-to-back airflow, no optional airflow variants

Factory Bare Chassis Included Hardware

1. 1RU standard 19-inch EIA horizontal rack-mount passive chassis
2. Rear panel fixed port bank:
   • 24 × auto-negotiating 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 host ports for server/VM host connections
   • 2 × SFP+ 10G fabric uplink ports dedicated to parent switch interconnection
3. Front panel redundant FRU slots: Dual AC power supply bays, dual hot-swappable fan tray slots
4. Integrated status LED indicators: Global system health, power supply fault, fan fault, per-port link/activity, UID rack locator beacon
5. Standard 19-inch rack mounting rails, front cable management brackets, hardware installation & global safety compliance documentation

Items Not Included (Must Be Ordered Separately)

• Hot-swappable AC power supplies (single PSU for basic operation, dual PSUs for N+1 power redundancy)
• Hot-swappable fan trays (single fan for basic operation, dual fans for redundant cooling)
• SFP+ transceivers and Twinax copper DAC cables for two 10G fabric uplink ports (SR/LR optical or short-range passive copper)
• Optional accessories: Lockable front door, air filter panel, cable management guides

Supported Parent Switch Platforms

3. Hardware Port & Slot Layout

Rear Panel Fixed Ports

1. 24 × 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 Host Ports
   Auto-sensing 1G copper interfaces compliant with IEEE 802.3ab Gigabit Ethernet. Supports lossless FCoE transport over CAT5e/CAT6 cabling via IEEE DCB PFC/ETS standards; all Layer 2, SAN and security policies are enforced centrally on the parent switch, not the FEX itselfCisco Russ....
2. 2 × SFP+ 10G Fabric Uplink Ports
   Wire-speed 10G Ethernet uplinks for fabric connectivity to the upstream parent switch. Supports SFP+ optical transceivers (SR, LR, ER) and passive Twinax DAC cables. The two uplinks can be bundled into LACP port-channels for load balancing and link failure redundancy.

Front Panel Redundant FRU Slots

1. Two independent hot-swappable AC power supply bays (N+1 redundant deployment supported)
2. Two independent hot-swappable fan tray slots (dual-fan redundancy eliminates single cooling point of failure)

Front Panel LED Status Array

4. Hardware Performance Specifications

1. Total host port capacity: 24×1G wire-speed downlink ports, total 24 Gbps aggregate host bandwidth
2. Fabric uplink bandwidth: 2×10G full-duplex uplinks, total 20 Gbps aggregate upstream bandwidth
3. Maximum oversubscription ratio: 1.2:1 when both 10G uplinks are active
4. Switching throughput: 88 Gbps full-duplex switching capacity, 65 Mpps wire-speed forwarding rateCisco
5. Dynamic shared packet buffer: Optimized for bursty virtualized server LAN and FCoE storage traffic
6. VLAN support: Up to 4094 standard IEEE 802.1Q VLANs, configured and managed exclusively on the parent switch
7. Port-channel scaling: Supports up to 8 physical host ports per LACP host port-channel / vPC trunk
8. Zero-touch provisioning: Automatic firmware synchronization, configuration download and bulk upgrades triggered from the parent switch single command
9. Hardware offload & lossless features (controlled by parent NX-OS):
   • IEEE DCB standards (PFC Priority Flow Control, ETS Enhanced Transmission Selection) for lossless FCoE storage transport
   • vPC dual-homing, PVLAN private VLAN, MSTP spanning tree, QoS traffic classification
   • VNTag virtual machine-aware traffic tagging for virtualized server environments

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Form Factor: 1 RU (4.37 cm height), standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 43.7 mm × 439.4 mm × 449.6 mm (1.72 × 17.3 × 17.7 inches)
• Bare chassis weight (no PSUs/fans/transceivers): ~4.8 kg (10.6 lbs)
• Fully loaded maximum weight (dual PSUs + dual fans + transceivers): ~6.5 kg (14.3 lbs)
• Operating temperature range: 0°C ~ 40°C (32°F ~ 104°F); certified altitude up to 3,000 meters
• Storage temperature range: -40°C ~ 70°C (-40°F ~ 158°F)
• Operating relative humidity: 5%–95% non-condensing
• Compliance Certifications: FCC Class A, UL 60950-1, CE, VCCI Class A, NEBS Level 3, GR63 seismic compliance, RoHS 6 validated

AC Power Supply FRU Specifications (Sold Separately)

• Input: Universal 90–264V AC, 50–60Hz
• Typical full-load power consumption: 130W with all 24 host ports active
• Hot-swappable OIR replacement, supports N+1 redundant power deployment

5. NX-OS Feature Set (Managed Centrally on Parent Switch)

Layer 2 Ethernet & Converged FCoE Fabric

• Single centralized management plane; all FEX ports appear as logical HIF (Host Interface) interfaces on the parent NX-OS switch
• 802.1Q VLAN tagging, PVLAN private VLAN isolation
• MSTP multi-instance spanning tree, vPC dual-active peer-link redundancy for server high availability
• IEEE DCB lossless standards (PFC, ETS) enabling FCoE storage traffic over 1G copper host ports
• NPV/NPIV FCoE edge virtualization for unified LAN-SAN data center convergence
• POAP zero-touch automatic provisioning for mass rack FEX deployment
• Port security, static MAC locking to restrict unauthorized server/storage device attachment

QoS & Traffic Prioritization

• Four hardware priority queues per port (1G copper and 10G fabric uplinks)
• Ingress policing, egress bandwidth shaping to throttle low-priority tape backup and replication traffic
• Pre-built QoS templates optimized for OLTP databases, all-flash NVMe storage, virtual server workloads and tape archives
• DCBX auto-negotiation for lossless FCoE LAN/SAN traffic over copper host ports

Monitoring & Automation Tools

• Cisco DCNM centralized converged fabric monitoring, provisioning and REST API automation
• Real-time streaming telemetry: port throughput, latency, frame error counters, SFP optical transmit power diagnostics
• Fault alert notifications via email, syslog and SNMP traps
• GOLD Generic Online Diagnostics for continuous FEX hardware health validation without production traffic interruption
• Unified bulk firmware upgrade: Singleinstall allcommand on parent switch upgrades all attached FEX devices simultaneously

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios for N2K-C2224TP FEX

1. Small/medium rack compact server expansion: Cost-effective 24-port Gigabit copper extension for racks with limited server density, consuming only two high-value 10G ports on the parent ToR switch
2. Entry-level unified LAN/FCoE storage rack: Supports lossless FCoE over low-cost CAT5e/CAT6 copper cabling for small all-flash storage arrays, extending the parent switch’s SAN convergence capability without expensive unified port line cards
3. Virtualization test/dev farm rack aggregation: Low-density VM host connectivity with centralized vPC, QoS and security policy management on the parent switch, ensuring consistent policy enforcement across all rack servers
4. Legacy data center migration cost optimization: Reuses existing Gigabit copper cabling infrastructure while maintaining a single unified fabric management plane; gradual migration path to 10G server ports via parent switch hardware refresh
5. Small multi-tenant branch PoP edge access: Low-cost rack-level multi-tenant port expansion with complete VLAN isolation controlled on the upstream core parent switch

7. Standard Package Contents of N2K-C2224TP Bare Chassis SKU

Separately Mandatory Components (Not Included in This Bare Chassis Bundle)

• One or two hot-swappable AC power supplies (dual PSUs recommended for N+1 power redundancy)
• One or two matching hot-swappable fan trays (dual fans recommended for cooling redundancy)
• SFP+ optical transceivers and Twinax DAC copper cables for two 10G fabric uplink ports
• Optional accessories: Lockable front door, air filter panel, serial console cable for parent switch management

Short Commercial Catalog Summary for Quotation