Cisco N3K-C31108TCV-32T Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

• Suffix breakdown definition:
  • TCV: 48×10GBASE-T copper physical ports + 6×QSFP28 uplinks + fixed port-intake airflow hardware
  • -32T: Factory pre-installed permanent license limiting active copper downlinks to 32×10GBASE-T (16 ports disabled until additional license purchased)
• Core differentiation vs full N3K-C31108TC-V: Lower upfront cost by locking 16 copper ports inactive, identical hardware, uplink performance, buffer, VXLAN/EVPN feature set and airflow design as the full 48-port copper variant.

2. Part Number Breakdown & Cross-Model Comparison

Full PN Breakdown

1. N3K: Cisco Nexus 3000 Series low-latency programmable data center switch family
2. C31108TCV-32T: 1RU licensed limited-port copper leaf switch chassis
   • 31108: High-performance 3100-V platform with aggregate 48 downlink + 6 uplink ports
   • TC: 48 physical 10GBASE-T twisted-pair copper downlinks + six QSFP28 universal high-speed uplink ports
   • V: Fixed port-side intake (reverse / PI) airflow, air flows into rear copper port panel and exhausts front PSU/fan side
   • -32T: Pre-installed permanent license enables only 32×10G-T downlinks; remaining 16 copper ports disabled without extra license activation
3. Airflow lock: All power supply and fan tray FRUs must be port-intake (PI) type; mismatched port-exhaust (PE) FRUs trigger thermal protection shutdown.

Hardware Comparison Table

Factory Integrated Chassis Included Hardware

1. 1RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack-mount fixed switch chassis
2. Rear panel port bank:
   • 48 × auto-sensing 10/100/1000/10000BASE-T RJ45 copper physical ports (only 32 usable out of factory; 16 ports administratively locked via license)
   • 6 × QSFP28 universal fabric uplink ports supporting 100G SR4/LR4/ER4, 40G SR4/LR4, BiDi optics, Twinax/AOC DAC, and QSFP28-to-4×SFP+ breakout transceivers
3. Front integrated out-of-band management subsystem:
   • RJ45 hybrid RS232 serial console port
   • Dedicated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band MGMT Ethernet port
   • USB Type-A flash storage port for offline firmware upload, config backup and POAP provisioning files
4. Front-panel LED status array: Global system health, individual PSU/fan fault alarms, per-port link/activity dual-color LEDs, blue UID locator beacon for rack asset identification
5. Dual hot-swappable NXA-PAC-650W-PI port-intake AC power supplies factory pre-installed
6. Hot-swappable redundant fan tray assembly with multiple internal fans (port-intake airflow preloaded)
7. Onboard hardware: Dual-core 2.5 GHz x86 CPU, 16 GB system DRAM, 64 GB SSD boot media
8. 19-inch rack mounting rails, extraction handle, hardware installation guide and global safety regulatory compliance documentation
9. Permanent pre-installed N3K-LIC-32T license to activate 32×10GBASE-T downlinks

Items Not Included (Must Be Ordered Separately)

1. QSFP28 transceivers for all six fabric uplink ports: 100G/40G SR4/LR4/ER4/BiDi optics, QSFP28-to-4×SFP+ breakout splitter modules, Twinax/AOC fiber cables
2. Upgrade license N3K-LIC-16T to unlock the remaining 16 dormant 10GBASE-T copper ports if future port expansion is required
3. Optional accessories: RJ45 serial console rollover cable, out-of-band management patch cords, lockable front door, air filter panel
4. Software licenses: N3K-BAS1K9 base license unlocks full Layer 3 routing functionality; VXLAN/EVPN virtualization features included without extra license fees

Supported Parent Switch & Fabric Compatibility

• Full unified fabric + hardware VXLAN/EVPN: Cisco Nexus 5600 / 7000 / 7700 / 9000 Series
• Interoperable with Nexus 2000/2300 blade & rack FEX devices for end-to-end LAN/FCoE convergence
• Minimum NX-OS firmware version: 7.0(3)I7(8) for complete VXLAN/EVPN feature activation

3. Hardware Port & Slot Layout

Rear Panel 48 10GBASE-T Copper Downlinks & 6 QSFP28 Uplink Ports

1. 48 × Auto-Sensing 10/100/1000/10000BASE-T Copper Physical Ports
   IEEE 802.3an 10GBASE-T twisted-pair interfaces with auto-negotiation and auto MDI-X correction, supporting up to 30-meter reach over Cat6a copper cabling. Hardware is identical to N3K-C31108TC-V, but software license restricts traffic forwarding on ports 33–48 until N3K-LIC-16T upgrade license is applied. Interfaces implement IEEE DCB PFC/ETS lossless Ethernet for IP SAN and FCoE unified storage workloads, jumbo frames up to 9216-byte MTU. All Layer 2 switching, ACL, MAC security and QoS policies are enforced locally on the switch hardware for active licensed ports.
2. 6 × Universal QSFP28 High-Speed Fabric Uplink Ports
   Three configurable operation modes for leaf-spine inter-switch connections, fully unrestricted by port licensing:
3. Native 100GE mode: High-bandwidth 100G inter-spine uplinks for large-scale cloud leaf-spine fabrics
4. Native 40GE mode: Standard 40G leaf-spine inter-switch links
5. Breakout mode: With QSFP28-to-4×SFP+ breakout transceivers, each port expands to four independent 10GE fabric channels to multiply uplink port density and reduce optical hardware costs
   All six uplink ports can be bundled into LACP fabric port-channels to support vPC / Enhanced vPC (EvPC) high-availability topologies, eliminating STP blocked links and maximizing uplink bandwidth utilization.

Front Panel Redundant FRU Slots & Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

1. Dual hot-swappable NXA-PAC-650W-PI port-intake AC power supplies (1+1 redundant power design enables non-disruptive live PSU replacement without switch reboot)
2. Single hot-swappable fan tray assembly with redundant internal fans; fixed port-side intake airflow matching PSU FRUs
3. Dedicated independent out-of-band management block: Serial console port, 1G MGMT Ethernet port and USB flash storage port for offline firmware upgrade and configuration management, fully isolated from production data plane traffic.

Front Panel LED Status Array

• Global chassis health LED: Solid green = normal operational state, solid amber = critical hardware fault
• Separate fault indicator LEDs for each power supply and fan tray assembly
• Per-port dual-color link/activity LEDs for all 48 physical RJ45 copper ports and six QSFP28 uplink ports (disabled ports will show no transceiver/link light)
• Remote-activatable blue UID beacon LED for fast rack asset identification during maintenance windows

4. Hardware Performance Specifications

1. Licensed active downlink bandwidth: 32 × 10G wire-speed ports, aggregate 320 Gbps full-duplex host bandwidth
2. Total uplink bandwidth: 6 × 100G full-duplex QSFP28 ports, aggregate 600 Gbps upstream fabric bandwidth
3. Fixed oversubscription ratio: 2:1 (320 Gbps licensed host bandwidth / 600 Gbps total fabric uplink bandwidth)
4. Non-blocking full-duplex switching fabric capacity: 2.8 Tbps
5. Wire-speed forwarding throughput: 1.4 Bpps (billion packets per second) at minimum 64-byte Ethernet frames (all active ports operate full line-rate L2/L3 simultaneously)
6. Forwarding latency: Ultra-low deterministic ~650 nanosecond store-and-forward latency, optimized for low-jitter financial HFT workloads
7. Dynamic shared packet buffer: 16 MB large deep shared buffer pool to mitigate packet loss under heavy storage/virtualization traffic bursts
8. MAC address table capacity: 288,000 MAC entry storage
9. VLAN scaling: Up to 4096 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
10. Jumbo frame MTU: Configurable up to 9216 bytes for storage replication and HPC big-data workloads
11. Spanning tree scale: 64 MSTP instances, 512 RSTP instances
12. Port-channel scaling: Maximum 64 EtherChannels, up to 32 physical ports per LACP fabric port-channel / vPC trunk
13. Zero-touch POAP provisioning: Automatic firmware synchronization, full configuration download and fleet-wide bulk upgrades triggered via a singleinstall allCLI command on the parent aggregation switch
14. Hardware lossless DCB & traffic offload features (fully controlled by NX-OS software):
    • IEEE 802.1Qbb PFC and 802.1Qaz ETS lossless Ethernet for FCoE storage transport
    • Native hardware-offloaded VXLAN and BGP EVPN for scalable multitenant cloud fabrics
    • vPC, FEX vPC and Enhanced vPC (EvPC) redundant Layer 2 multipathing high availability
    • Four independent hardware priority queues per port with WRR/DRR traffic scheduling
    • PVLAN private VLAN isolation, UDLD link failure monitoring, broadcast/multicast storm control
    • IEEE 1588 PTP boundary clock for precise sub-microsecond time synchronization in financial co-location environments
    • Expanded SAN-specific debug counters to track FCoE pause frames and storage buffer credit loss

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Form Factor: 1 RU (43.7 mm height) standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 43.7 mm × 439.4 mm × 566 mm (1.72 × 17.3 × 22.3 inches)
• Factory integrated chassis weight (dual PSUs + fan tray, no uplink transceivers): ~9.7 kg (21.4 lbs)
• Operating temperature range: 0°C ~ 40°C (32°F ~ 104°F); certified altitude up to 3,000 meters (10,000 ft)
• Storage temperature range: -40°C ~ 70°C (-40°F ~ 158°F)
• Operating relative humidity: 10%–85% non-condensing; storage 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 (NXA-PAC-650W-PI Port-Intake, Factory Included)

• AC input range: 100–240 VAC, 50/60 Hz, typical energy efficiency 89–91%
• DC input option: -40 to -72 VDC negative telecom DC power supply (sold separately)
• Typical full-system power consumption: 220W with all licensed 32 copper ports fully populated
• Maximum heat dissipation: 1195 BTU/hour at full load
• Hot-swappable OIR replacement capability; no full switch reboot required during live PSU hardware swap
• MTBF: 291,523 hours under nominal operating conditions

5. NX-OS Software Feature Set (Centrally Managed via CLI / Cisco DCNM Graphical Platform)

Layer 2 Core Data Center Fabric Features

• IEEE 802.1Q trunking, PVLAN private VLAN isolation (max 4096 VLANs), transparent VTP mode
• RSTP/MSTP spanning tree suite with BPDU guard, root guard and aggressive UDLD link monitoring
• Static & dynamic LACP EtherChannels, vPC dual-active high availability to eliminate STP blocking links and maximize uplink bandwidth utilization
• DHCP snooping, dynamic ARP inspection, port security MAC address locking, broadcast/multicast storm control
• DCB PFC/ETS lossless Ethernet for Fibre Channel over Ethernet unified storage convergence
• IEEE 1588 PTP precision time synchronization optimized for low-latency high-frequency trading environments

Layer 3 Routing & Virtualization Features (Requires Optional N3K-BAS1K9 Base License)

• Unicast routing protocols: Static routes, OSPFv2, EIGRP, RIPv2, BGP-4, 64-way ECMP multi-path load balancing
• Multicast routing suite: IGMPv2/v3, PIM-SM, MSDP for video streaming and inter-rack storage replication workloads
• First-hop redundancy protocols: HSRP, VRRP for gateway failover redundancy
• Hardware-accelerated IP ACLs (16,000 ingress / 1,000 egress entries), route redistribution, prefix lists and route-map traffic segmentation policies
• Native line-rate hardware VXLAN routing and BGP EVPN control plane for large-scale multitenant cloud virtual machine mobility

Security, Monitoring & DevOps Automation Tools

• AAA authentication stack (TACACS+/RADIUS/Local user database), SSHv2 encrypted out-of-band management sessions
• SNMP v1/v2c/v3 remote monitoring, centralized syslog logging, RMON traffic statistics collection
• Cisco DCNM single-pane graphical fabric monitoring, automated provisioning and REST API integration for data center automation
• NX-API REST/CLI APIs, Python scripting, Embedded Event Manager (EEM) for custom automation workflows
• Native integration with Puppet, Chef, Ansible DevOps toolchains for infrastructure-as-code deployments
• GOLD Generic Online Diagnostics for continuous non-disruptive hardware health validation
• Unified bulk fleet-wide firmware upgrade: Single parent switch CLI command upgrades all attached blade and rack FEX devices simultaneously
• Real-time streaming telemetry for port latency, buffer utilization and granular error counter visibility

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios for N3K-C31108TCV-32T Integrated Copper Chassis

1. Cost-optimized small enterprise copper 10G leaf-spine ToR switch: Pre-licensed for only 32×10G copper downlinks to reduce upfront capital expenditure for server racks with less than 32 virtualization hosts; reuses existing Cat6a copper cabling for 1G-to-10G server migration, fixed port-intake airflow standardizes cold-aisle facility rack cooling design.
2. Mid-market IP SAN & small unified LAN/FCoE edge deployment: DCB lossless Ethernet supports FCoE storage transport over copper cabling, eliminating separate dedicated SAN access switches for small-scale storage environments; 6 high-speed 100G QSFP28 uplinks build scalable leaf-spine fabric for consolidated IT workloads.
3. Cloud service provider low-density multi-tenant PoP rack deployment: Hardware-offloaded VXLAN/BGP EVPN delivers scalable tenant traffic isolation via VLAN segmentation, breakout 4×10G uplink mode reduces optical hardware costs for sparse copper server racks, centralized policy management unifies configuration across fabric leaf switches.
4. HPC and small big-data parallel compute cluster aggregation: Deep 16 MB shared buffer absorbs bursty east-west parallel compute and storage replication traffic, ultra-low deterministic latency stabilizes distributed computing workload performance for medium-sized compute farms.
5. Financial co-location low-latency trading partial-density leaf switch: Sub-650ns consistent forwarding latency minimizes market transaction jitter, pre-limited 32-port licensing avoids over-provisioning for trading racks with limited host count, redundant hot-swappable FRUs guarantee non-stop trading fabric uptime.

7. Standard Package Contents of N3K-C31108TCV-32T Factory SKU

Separately Mandatory Components (Not Included in This Bundle)

1. QSFP28 transceivers for all six fabric uplink ports: 100G/40G SR4/LR4/ER4/BiDi optics, QSFP28-to-4×SFP+ breakout splitter modules, Twinax/AOC fiber cables
2. Optional upgrade license N3K-LIC-16T to unlock the dormant 16×10GBASE-T copper ports if future server capacity expansion is required
3. Optional feature software licenses: N3K-BAS1K9 base license required to unlock full Layer 3 routing functionality; VXLAN/EVPN Layer 2 virtualization features enabled without additional license activation

• Auxiliary accessories: RJ45 serial console rollover cable, out-of-band management Ethernet patch cords, lockable front door, air filter panel

Short Commercial Catalog Summary for Quotation