Cisco N3K-C3132C-Z Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

• Suffix breakdown definition:
  • C= Universal QSFP28 100G multi-rate high-speed ports
  • 3132= 3100 generation high-density 32-port platform
  • -Z= Dual airflow support (selectable port-intake / port-exhaust power and fan FRUs), Trident3 silicon optimized for SDN/VXLAN workloads
• Core differentiators vs older Nexus 3100 models: Native 25G/50G multi-rate QSFP28 support, full hardware VXLAN encapsulation/decapsulation, larger buffer pool, embedded Linux containers, NX-API REST automation, and PTP boundary clock for precise low-latency timing.

2. Part Number Suffix Breakdown & Cross-Model Comparison

Full PN Breakdown

1. N3K: Cisco Nexus 3000 Series programmable low-latency data center Layer 2/3 switch family
2. C3132C-Z: 1RU all-fiber high-speed leaf/spine integrated switch chassis
   • 3132: High-performance 3100-V Trident3 platform with total 34 combined high-speed ports
   • C: 32 universal QSFP28 multi-rate fabric ports
   • -Z: Dual airflow hardware support (Port-side Intake PI / Port-side Exhaust PE FRU options)
3. Airflow flexibility: Matching port-intake (PI) or port-exhaust (PE) power supply and fan tray FRUs can be selected to align with cold/hot aisle rack cooling standards; mismatched airflow 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 port panel:
   • 32 universal QSFP28 bidirectional multi-rate ports for leaf-spine inter-switch links, 25G server downlinks, and high-speed storage interconnections
3. Front panel auxiliary port & management subsystem:
   • 2 × SFP+ 1/10G auxiliary ports (port 33 / 34) for out-of-band storage replication or low-speed uplinks
   • Dedicated out-of-band management block:
     • RJ45 hybrid RS232 serial console port
     • Dual management interfaces: 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 MGMT + SFP MGMT port
     • USB Type-A flash storage port for offline firmware upload, config backup and POAP provisioning files
4. Full front-panel LED status array: Global system health (green normal / amber critical fault), independent fault LEDs for each power supply and fan tray, per-QSFP lane link/activity indicators, blue UID locator beacon for rack asset identification during maintenance
5. Dual hot-swappable NXA-PAC AC/DC power supplies factory pre-installed (port-intake PI or port-exhaust PE airflow variants matched to fan tray)
6. Hot-swappable redundant fan tray assembly with 3+1 redundant internal fans (airflow direction matched to PSU FRUs)
7. Onboard hardware: Quad-core x86 CPU, 16 GB system DRAM, 64 GB SSD persistent boot media
8. Standard 19-inch rack mounting rails, front cable management brackets, hardware installation guide and global safety regulatory compliance documentation
9. No optical transceivers pre-installed (all QSFP28/SFP+ optics sold separately)

Items Not Included (Must Be Ordered Separately)

1. QSFP28 transceivers for all 32 primary ports: 100G SR4/LR4/ER4, 50G, 40G SR4/LR4, 25G SR/BiDi, passive Twinax DAC, active AOC fiber cables, and QSFP28-to-4×SFP28 breakout splitter modules
2. SFP+ transceivers for 2 front auxiliary ports: 1G/10G SR/LR/ER optical modules, Twinax/AOC DAC cables
3. Optional accessories: Serial console rollover cable, out-of-band management Ethernet patch cords, lockable front door, air filter panel
4. Software licenses: N3K-BAS1K9 base license unlocks full Layer 3 routing functionality; VXLAN/EVPN Layer 2 virtualization features enabled without extra license fees

Supported Fabric & Parent Compatibility

• Full unified fabric + hardware VXLAN/BGP EVPN + DCB lossless FCoE: Cisco Nexus 5600 / 7000 / 7700 / 9000 Series (minimum NX-OS 7.0(3)IX1(2))Cisco
• Interoperable with Nexus 2000 blade & 2300 rack FEX devices for end-to-end LAN/FCoE storage convergence
• SDN compatibility: OpenFlow 1.3, NX-API REST/JSON APIs, embedded Linux containers, Ansible/Puppet/Chef DevOps toolchain integration
• Interoperable with Nexus 3000/3100 leaf/spine switches for homogeneous 100G data center fabric

3. Hardware Port & Slot Layout

Rear Panel 32 Universal QSFP28 Multi-Rate Fabric Ports

1. Native high-speed mode: Direct 100G/50G/40G inter-switch leaf-spine uplinks for large-scale cloud core fabric interconnections
2. Breakout mode: With QSFP28-to-4×SFP28 splitter transceivers, each port expands to four independent 25GE channels for dense 25G server/storage downlink access, maximizing port density without extra rack switches
   All ports support jumbo frames up to 9216-byte MTU, IEEE 802.3 standards, and long-reach LR4/ER4 optical transceivers for cross-facility DCI interconnections. IEEE DCB PFC/ETS lossless Ethernet is fully implemented for FCoE unified storage workloads, with all Layer 2 switching, ACL, MAC security and QoS policies enforced locally on the Trident3 silicon.

Front Panel Auxiliary SFP+ Ports, Redundant FRU Slots & Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

1. Dual hot-swappable AC/DC power supply bays (supports 1+1 redundant power inputs for non-disruptive live PSU replacement without full switch reboot)
2. Single hot-swappable fan tray assembly with 3+1 redundant internal fans; airflow direction determined by matching fan and power supply FRU selection (port intake = air flows into rear port panel; port exhaust = air exhausts rear port panel)
3. Two dedicated SFP+ 1/10G auxiliary ports for low-speed storage replication or secondary management uplinks
4. Dedicated independent out-of-band management block: Dual MGMT interfaces, serial console 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 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 lane link/activity LEDs for all 32 rear QSFP28 fabric ports and two front SFP+ auxiliary ports
• Remote-activatable blue UID beacon LED for fast rack asset identification during maintenance windows

4. Hardware Performance Specifications

1. Total downlink bandwidth: 32 × 100G wire-speed ports, aggregate 3.2 Tbps full-duplex host bandwidth
2. Total uplink bandwidth: 32 × 100G bidirectional fabric ports (all ports function as flexible uplink/downlink), aggregate 3.2 Tbps full-duplex upstream fabric bandwidth
3. Fixed oversubscription ratio: 2:1 (3.2 Tbps total host downlink bandwidth / 1.28 Tbps usable uplink fabric bandwidth)
4. Non-blocking full-duplex switching fabric capacity: 6.4 TbpsCisco
5. Wire-speed forwarding throughput: 2 Bpps (billion packets per second) at minimum 64-byte Ethernet frames (all ports operate full line-rate L2/L3 simultaneously)
6. Forwarding latency: Ultra-low deterministic microsecond-scale store-and-forward latency, optimized for low-jitter financial HFT and parallel HPC workloads
7. Dynamic shared packet buffer: 32 MB large deep unified buffer pool to mitigate packet loss under heavy bursty virtualization and storage replication traffic
8. MAC address table capacity: 288,000 MAC entry storage
9. IPv4 Unicast Routing Table: 24,000 prefix entries maximum
10. VLAN scaling: Up to 4096 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
11. Jumbo frame MTU: Configurable up to 9216 bytes for storage replication and large-scale big-data workloads
12. Spanning tree scale: 64 MSTP instances, 512 RSTP instances
13. Port-channel scaling: Maximum 64 EtherChannels, up to 32 physical ports per LACP fabric port-channel / vPC trunk
14. 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
15. Hardware lossless DCB & traffic offload features (fully controlled by NX-OS software):
    • IEEE 802.1Qbb PFC and 802.1Qaz ETS lossless Ethernet for FCoE unified storage transport
    • Native hardware-offloaded VXLAN and BGP EVPN for scalable multi-tenant cloud fabric virtual machine mobility
    • 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 × 510 mm (1.72 × 17.3 × 20.0 inches)
• Integrated chassis weight (dual PSUs + fan tray, no transceivers): ~9.2 kg (20.3 lbs)
• Fully loaded maximum weight (dual PSUs + fan tray + fully populated QSFP28/SFP+ transceivers): ~11.5 kg (25.3 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 (Factory Pre-Installed Dual Redundant PSUs)

• AC PSU input range: 100–240 VAC, 50/60 Hz, typical energy efficiency 89–91%
• DC PSU input range: -40 to -72 VDC negative telecom DC power supply (sold as separate FRU variant)
• Typical full-system power consumption: 312W with all 32 QSFP28 ports fully populated; maximum peak power draw 493WCisco
• Typical heat dissipation: 1064 BTU/hour at full load, maximum 1682 BTU/hour
• Hot-swappable OIR replacement capability; no full switch reboot required during live PSU hardware swap
• MTBF: 300,000 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, 32-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, route redistribution, prefix lists and route-map traffic segmentation policies
• Maximum routing table capacity: 24,000 IPv4 prefix entries, 8,000 multicast routes
• Full hardware-offloaded VXLAN routing and BGP EVPN control plane for large-scale multi-tenant cloud virtual machine mobility

Security, Monitoring & DevOps Automation Tools

• AAA authentication stack (TACACS+/RADIUS/Local user database), SSHv2 encrypted 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/JSON APIs, embedded Linux containers, 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 via single parent switch CLI command for uniform fabric fleets
• Real-time streaming telemetry for port latency, buffer utilization and granular error counter visibility

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios for N3K-C3132C-Z Integrated Chassis

1. Modern leaf-spine data center leaf/spine switch: 32×100G QSFP28 high-density ports build scalable 100G cloud fabric; breakout 4×25G mode delivers cost-effective dense 25G downlinks to virtualization servers, dual airflow FRU options standardize cold/hot aisle rack cooling for large enterprise and cloud data center fleets. Factory pre-equipped dual redundant PSUs and fan trays eliminate separate cooling FRU procurement at deployment time.
2. Low-latency financial co-location trading leaf switch: Deterministic microsecond forwarding latency minimizes transaction jitter, deep 32 MB shared buffer eliminates peak market burst packet loss, hardware-offloaded VXLAN/BGP EVPN isolates multi-tenant trading environments, redundant hot-swappable FRUs guarantee non-stop trading fabric uptime.
3. HPC and big-data parallel compute cluster core aggregation: Massive 100G fabric bandwidth handles high-volume east-west parallel compute and storage replication traffic, multi-rate QSFP28 ports support mixed 25G compute node and 100G inter-spine uplink connectivity without extra transceivers.
4. Mid-market unified LAN/FCoE storage fabric core switch: DCB lossless Ethernet supports FCoE storage transport over fiber cabling, interoperable with Nexus 2300 unified UPQ FEX devices for mixed blade enclosure + standalone fiber server rack consolidation, eliminating separate dedicated SAN aggregation switches for mid-sized storage deployments.
5. Standardized mass data center uniform fabric rollout: Integrated factory pre-populated power and fan FRUs reduce spare part inventory complexity, dual airflow compatibility supports flexible rack cooling design planning for mixed cold/hot aisle facility layouts, single-pane DCNM management unifies configuration across all leaf/spine switch fleets.

7. Standard Package Contents of N3K-C3132C-Z Integrated Factory SKU

Separately Mandatory Components (Not Included in This Bundle)

1. QSFP28 transceivers for all 32 fabric primary ports: 100G/50G/40G/25G SR4/LR4/ER4/BiDi optics, QSFP28-to-4×SFP28 breakout splitter modules, Twinax/AOC fiber cables
2. SFP+ transceivers for two front auxiliary ports: 1G/10G SR/LR/ER optical transceivers, Twinax/AOC DAC fiber cables
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