Cisco N3K-C3524P-10GX Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

• Suffix breakdown definition:
  • P: SFP+ fiber optical port platform
  • 24: Default 24 active SFP+ ports (48 physical ports on chip, licensable expansion)
  • -10GX: Enhanced X-series integrated chassis with larger 12MB buffer, expanded Logflash, advanced latency telemetry; factory preloaded with dual redundant AC power + 4+1 fan tray, airflow PI/PE selectable at ordering
• Core differentiators vs base N3K-C3524P-10G: Doubled 12MB shared buffer (6MB on base model), 4GB expanded Logflash storage, enhanced nanosecond-level latency monitoring, optimized software VXLAN/BGP EVPN handling, richer real-time traffic telemetry; integrated pre-populated power/cooling hardware vs bare 3172 series; Algo Boost cut-through sub-200ns latency vs microsecond store-and-forward PHY-less ASIC of 3172 platformsCisco.

2. Part Number Suffix Breakdown & Cross-Model Comparison

Full PN Breakdown

1. N3K: Cisco Nexus 3000 Series ultra-low-latency cut-through data center Layer 2/3 switch family
2. C3524P-10GX: 1RU enhanced X-series integrated low-latency ToR switch chassis
   • 3524: 3500 Algo Boost ultra-low-latency platform, 48 physical SFP+ ports (24 active base license)
   • P: SFP+ fiber optical port design
   • 10GX: Enhanced buffer/memory integrated chassis, factory pre-installed dual redundant AC power supplies + 4+1 redundant fan tray, airflow PI/PE configurable at order
3. Airflow rule: All power supply and fan tray FRUs must match airflow type (PI or PE); mixed airflow modules trigger thermal protection shutdown.

Hardware Comparison Table

Factory Integrated Chassis Included Hardware

1. 1RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack-mount fixed switch chassis
2. Front full-width port panel bank:
   • 48 × auto-sensing 1/10G SFP+ bidirectional fiber ports (only 24 ports enabled out of box; license upgrade unlocks full 48-port capacity)
3. Front integrated out-of-band management subsystem:
   • RJ45 hybrid RS232 serial console port
   • 1 × dedicated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band MGMT Ethernet port
   • USB Type-A flash storage port for offline firmware upload, configuration backup and POAP zero-touch provisioning files
   • Blue UID locator beacon LED for rack asset identification during maintenance
4. Front-panel global status LED: Green = normal operation, amber = critical hardware fault; separate fault indicators for each power supply and fan tray
5. Rear side dual hot-swappable AC power supply slots (factory preloaded with two matching airflow NXA-PAC-500W AC power supplies, 1+1 redundant power architecture)
6. Rear hot-swappable fan tray assembly with 4 active + 1 spare redundant internal fans; airflow direction pre-matched to PSU FRUs per customer order
7. Onboard system hardware: Dual-core x86 CPU, standard base memory, 4GB Logflash eUSB boot media, 1-PPS timing sync RF port for financial trading clock synchronization
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 SFP+ optics sold separately as spare parts)

Items Not Included (Must Be Ordered Separately)

1. SFP+ transceivers for SFP+ fabric ports: 1G/10G SR/LR/ER optical modules, passive Twinax DAC, active AOC fiber cables
2. Optional upgrade license N3K-LIC-3524-48 to unlock all 48 SFP+ physical ports from default 24 active ports
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; base Layer 2 switching enabled without additional license fees; VXLAN bridging supported with standard NX-OS firmware upgrade

Supported Fabric & Parent Switch Compatibility

• Full unified fabric + lossless DCB FCoE: Cisco Nexus 5500 / 5600 / 6000 Series (minimum NX-OS 7.0(3)I3(1))
• Layer 2/Layer3 Ethernet only: Nexus 7000 / 7700 / 9000 Series
• Native interoperability with Nexus 2000 blade FEX devices for end-to-end consolidated LAN/SAN data center architecture
• SDN compatibility: OpenFlow 1.3, NX-API REST/JSON APIs, Ansible/Puppet/Chef DevOps automation integration

3. Hardware Port & Slot Layout

Front Panel 48 SFP+ 1/10G Fiber Ports (24 Active Base)

Front Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

1. RS232 serial console port for local CLI configuration
2. 1 × 10/100/1000BASE-T copper management port for remote SSH/SNMP/DCNM access
3. USB Type-A port for offline config/firmware file import/export
4. 1-PPS RF timing synchronization port for financial trading low-latency clock alignment

Rear Panel Redundant FRU Slots

1. Dual hot-swappable AC power supply bays (factory pre-installed dual redundant PSUs, hot-swap capable without switch reboot)
2. Single hot-swappable 4+1 redundant fan tray assembly (hot-swap capable for maintenance without outage)

Front Panel LED Status Indicators

• Global chassis health LED (green normal / amber critical fault)
• Per-port dual-color link/activity LEDs for all 48 SFP+ fiber ports
• Separate fault LEDs for each power supply and fan tray assembly
• Remote-triggerable blue UID beacon LED for rack identification during maintenance windows

4. Hardware Performance Specifications

1. Total port capacity: 48 × 10G wire-speed ports (24 active base, upgradable to full 48)
2. Total switching fabric bandwidth: 480 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex
3. Wire-speed forwarding throughput: 360 Mpps at minimum 64-byte Ethernet frames (all ports operate full line-rate L2/L3 simultaneously)
4. Forwarding latency: Sub-200 nanosecond cut-through deterministic latency via Algo Boost ASIC (industry-leading for low-latency trading workloads)
5. Dynamic shared packet buffer: 12MB large unified shared buffer pool (double the capacity of base 10G model) to eliminate packet loss under heavy bursty virtualization and storage replication traffic
6. MAC address table capacity: 8,000 MAC entry storage
7. IPv4 Unicast Routing Table: 16,000 LPM prefix entries maximum
8. VLAN scaling: Up to 4096 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
9. Jumbo frame MTU: Configurable up to 9216 bytes for storage replication and large-scale big-data workloads
10. Spanning tree scale: 64 MSTP instances, 512 RSTP instances
11. Port-channel scaling: Maximum 64 EtherChannels, up to 24 physical ports per LACP fabric port-channel / vPC trunk
12. 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
13. 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
    • Optimized software-supported VXLAN bridging and BGP EVPN control plane for large-scale multi-tenant virtual machine mobility (enhanced scaling vs base 10G model)
    • 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-nanosecond time synchronization in financial co-location environments
    • Advanced nanosecond-level latency monitoring telemetry, expanded SAN 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 × 442 mm × 467 mm (1.72 × 17.4 × 18.4 inches)
• Integrated chassis weight (dual factory PSUs + fan tray, no transceivers): ~7.9 kg (17.4 lbs)
• Fully loaded maximum weight (dual PSUs + fan tray + fully populated SFP+ transceivers): ~9.5 kg (20.9 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 NXA-PAC-500W)

• AC input range: 100–240 VAC, 50/60 Hz, typical energy efficiency 89–91%
• DC input range: -40 to -72 VDC negative telecom DC power supply (separate FRU airflow variant)
• Typical full-system power consumption: 108W with all 24 active SFP+ ports fully populated; maximum peak power draw 270W
• Hot-swappable OIR replacement capability; no full switch reboot required during live PSU hardware swap
• MTBF: 330,000 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 ultra-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, 24-way ECMP multi-path load balancing
• Multicast routing suite: IGMPv2/v3, PIM-SM, BiDir PIM for video streaming and inter-rack storage replication workloads
• First-hop redundancy protocols: HSRP, VRRP for gateway failover redundancy
• Hardware-accelerated IP ACLs (4096 ingress entries), route redistribution, prefix lists and route-map traffic segmentation policies
• Enhanced EVPN/VXLAN scaling supported by larger buffer and expanded storage for dense multi-tenant fabrics
• Software VXLAN bridging for virtual machine mobility (optimized processing vs base 10G model, no hardware encapsulation offload)

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 via single parent switch CLI command for uniform fabric fleets
• Real-time streaming telemetry with advanced nanosecond latency counters, extended buffer depth tracking unique to X-series enhanced hardware

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios for N3K-C3524P-10GX Integrated Chassis

1. Mid-to-large financial co-location low-latency trading ToR switch: Algo Boost sub-200ns cut-through latency eliminates PHY-induced latency variance for algorithmic trading workloads, upgraded 12MB shared buffer absorbs massive burst trading traffic without drops, factory pre-integrated dual redundant power and fan trays remove separate cooling/power FRU procurement overhead, default 24-port capacity matches medium-density trading rack server density, upgradeable to full 48-port capacity as trading farm scales.
2. Medium-to-large enterprise all-fiber leaf-spine data center leaf switch: 24 active 10G SFP+ ports serve dense multi-tenant virtualization server racks connected via Nexus 2300 unified UPQ FEX devices, merging general LAN and lossless FCoE iSCSI storage traffic on a compact 1RU switch with non-blocking wire-rate performance, dual airflow FRU options support mixed cold/hot aisle rack layout rules, enhanced EVPN handling suits large multi-tenant cloud fabrics.
3. Medium/large HPC and big-data parallel compute cluster rack aggregation: Compact 1RU footprint saves valuable rack space for medium/high-density compute farms, optional 48-port license expansion doubles logical port density without new hardware purchases, large 12MB shared buffer eliminates burst packet loss for distributed storage replication workloads.
4. Mid-scale unified LAN/FCoE data center edge aggregation switch: Interoperable with Nexus 2000 blade FEX devices for mixed blade enclosure + standalone fiber server rack consolidation, supporting lossless FCoE storage transport over fiber cabling to eliminate separate dedicated SAN access switches for medium/large storage deployments with heavy burst traffic and large routing scale requirements.
5. Standardized mass mixed-airflow data center uniform fabric rollout: Factory pre-populated integrated power and cooling FRUs simplify spare part inventory management, dual airflow FRU compatibility supports flexible cold/hot aisle rack cooling design planning, enhanced telemetry and buffer capacity reduce congestion incidents in high-traffic multi-tenant fabric pods.

7. Standard Package Contents of N3K-C3524P-10GX Integrated Factory SKU

Separately Mandatory Components (Not Included in This Bundle)

1. SFP+ transceivers for active SFP+ fabric ports: 1G/10G SR/LR/ER optical transceivers, Twinax/AOC fiber DAC cables
2. Optional upgrade license N3K-LIC-3524-48 to unlock all 48 physical SFP+ ports from default 24 active ports

• Optional feature software licenses: N3K-BAS1K9 base license required to unlock full Layer 3 routing functionality; Layer 2 switching features enabled by default without 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