Cisco N3K-C3548P-10G Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

N3K-C3548P-10Gis a high-density 1RU ultra-low-latency cut-through Layer 2/3 integrated Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch from Cisco Nexus 3500 base series, released April 1, 2011, End-of-Sale (Jan 31, 2022) and End-of-Support-Life (Jan 31, 2027)Cisco. It is a factory pre-populated fixed chassis with dual hot-swappable redundant AC power supplies and 3+1 redundant hot-swappable fans, supporting customer-selectable airflow (Port-side Intake PI / Port-side Exhaust PE) at order time. Built on Cisco Algo Boost PHY-less ASIC for consistent sub-250ns deterministic cut-through latency, it features48 fixed active 1/10G SFP+ fiber ports(no port license limitation, all 48 ports enabled natively out of box), targeted for high-frequency algorithmic trading (HFT), dense HPC big-data clusters, lossless iSCSI/FCoE storage, and mid/large-scale leaf-spine data center fabrics.

Running modular Cisco NX-OS, it delivers wire-rate non-blocking forwarding, 18MB total shared packet buffer (6MB dynamic shared pool), standard 2GB Logflash storage, basic software VXLAN bridging, full IEEE DCB lossless storage feature set, and complete SDN automation including OpenFlow 1.3, NX-API REST/JSON APIs and POAP zero-touch provisioning.

Suffix breakdown definition:
- P= SFP+ fiber optical port platform
- 48= 48 fully active native 1/10G SFP+ ports (no port unlock license required)
- -10G= Base standard-memory integrated chassis, factory preloaded with dual redundant AC power + 4-fan redundant tray, airflow PI/PE selectable at ordering, no bundled optical transceivers
Core differentiators vs N3K-C3524P-10G: Full 48 native active SFP+ ports (24 on 3524 base model), doubled 960Gbps switching capacity, larger buffer pool, no port expansion license needed; differentiated from enhanced N3K-C3548P-10GX by smaller base 6MB shared buffer, 2GB basic Logflash, limited latency telemetry and basic VXLAN handling; distinct from 3172 series by Algo Boost cut-through nanosecond latency instead of microsecond store-and-forward PHY-less architecture.

2. Part Number Suffix Breakdown & Cross-Model Comparison

Full PN Breakdown

N3K: Cisco Nexus 3000 Series ultra-low-latency cut-through data center Layer 2/3 switch family
C3172TQ-XL: 1RU base high-density all-fiber integrated ToR switch chassis
- 3548: 3500 Algo Boost ultra-low-latency platform with 48 native active SFP+ ports
- P: SFP+ fiber optical port design
- 10G: Base standard-memory integrated chassis with factory pre-installed dual redundant AC power supplies + 3+1 redundant fan tray, airflow PI/PE configurable at order
Airflow flexibility: Two separate FRU families available: Port-side Intake (PI, air flows front-to-back) and Port-side Exhaust (PE, air flows back-to-front). Mismatched airflow power supply and fan tray modules trigger thermal protection shutdown.

Hardware Comparison Table

表格

Item	N3K-C3548P-10G (48-port Base Integrated Chassis)	N3K-C3548P-10GX (48-port Enhanced X Integrated Chassis)	N3K-C3524P-10G (24-port Base Integrated Chassis)
Downlink Ports	48 × SFP+ 1/10G fiber (all active, no license)	48 × SFP+ 1/10G fiber (all active)	48 physical SFP+ (24 active base, license unlock)
Latency	Sub-250ns cut-through Algo Boost	Sub-250ns optimized low-jitter Algo Boost	Sub-200ns cut-through Algo Boost
Shared Buffer	6MB dynamic pool, 18MB total buffer	12MB large enhanced unified buffer	6MB base unified buffer
Logflash Storage	2GB basic persistent storage	4GB expanded Logflash	2GB basic Logflash
Native VXLAN/EVPN	Software-only VXLAN bridging, basic EVPN	Optimized software VXLAN + advanced telemetry	Software-only VXLAN bridging
Form Factor	1RU integrated pre-populated PSUs/fans	1RU integrated pre-populated PSUs/fans	1RU integrated pre-populated PSUs/fans
Switch Fabric Capacity	960 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex	960 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex	480 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex
Oversubscription Ratio	Non-blocking wire-rate (480Gbps full duplex)	Non-blocking wire-rate	Non-blocking wire-rate
Primary Use Case	Dense HFT trading racks, medium/large leaf-spine fabrics, high-density storage pods	Heavy burst financial HFT, large multi-tenant cloud fabrics	Entry-level low-latency small ToR racks

Factory Integrated Chassis Included Hardware

1RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack-mount fixed switch chassis
Front full-width port panel bank:
- 48 × auto-sensing 1/10G SFP+ bidirectional fiber ports (all ports permanently active out of box, no unlock license required)Cisco
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 (one disabled unused secondary management port exists with no activation roadmap)
- Single 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
Front-panel global status LED: Green = normal operation, amber = critical hardware fault; separate fault indicators for each power supply and fan tray
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)
Rear hot-swappable fan tray assembly with 3 active + 1 spare redundant internal fans; airflow direction pre-matched to PSU FRUs per customer order
Onboard system hardware: Dual-core x86 CPU, standard base memory, 2GB Logflash eUSB boot media, 1-PPS RF timing sync port for financial trading clock synchronizationCisco
Standard 19-inch rack mounting rails, front cable management brackets, hardware installation guide and global safety regulatory compliance documentation
No optical transceivers pre-installed (all SFP+ optics sold separately as spare parts)

Items Not Included (Must Be Ordered Separately)

SFP+ transceivers for SFP+ fabric ports: 1G/10G SR/LR/ER optical modules, passive Twinax DAC, active AOC fiber cables
Optional accessories: Serial console rollover cable, out-of-band management Ethernet patch cords, lockable front door, air filter panel
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
No port upgrade license required — all 48 SFP+ ports work at full capacity natively.

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 (All Active Native)

48 × IEEE 802.3ae compliant multi-speed SFP+ fiber interfaces with auto-negotiation of 1G or 10G line rates, supporting short-reach SR and long-reach LR/ER optical transceivers for cross-rack replication links. Implements IEEE DCB PFC/ETS lossless Ethernet standards for FCoE unified IP SAN storage workloads, jumbo frames configurable up to 9216-byte MTU. All Layer 2 switching, ACL, MAC security and QoS traffic scheduling policies are enforced locally on the Algo Boost cut-through ASIC for sub-250ns ultra-low latency; unlike 3524 series, no license key is needed to activate all 48 physical ports.

Front Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

RS232 serial console port for local CLI configuration
1 × functional 10/100/1000BASE-T copper management port for remote SSH/SNMP/DCNM access (second management port hardware exists but permanently disabled)
Single USB Type-A port for offline config/firmware file import/export
1-PPS RF timing synchronization port for financial trading low-latency clock alignment

Rear Panel Redundant FRU Slots

Dual hot-swappable AC power supply bays (factory pre-installed dual redundant PSUs, hot-swap capable without switch reboot)
Single hot-swappable 3+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 locator beacon LED for rack identification during maintenance windows

4. Hardware Performance Specifications

Total port capacity: 48 × 10G wire-speed ports (all active natively, no license expansion)
Total switching fabric bandwidth: 960 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex
Wire-speed forwarding throughput: 720 Mpps at minimum 64-byte Ethernet frames (all ports operate full line-rate L2/L3 simultaneously)Cisco
Forwarding latency: Sub-250 nanosecond cut-through deterministic latency via Algo Boost PHY-less ASIC, optimized for consistent low-jitter algorithmic trading workloads
Dynamic shared packet buffer: 6MB dynamic shared pool (18MB total buffer capacity) to mitigate packet loss under moderate bursty virtualization and storage replication traffic
MAC address table capacity: 8,000 MAC entry storage
IPv4 Unicast Routing Table: 16,000 LPM prefix entries maximum
VLAN scaling: Up to 4096 standard IEEE 802.1Q tagged VLANs
Jumbo frame MTU: Configurable up to 9216 bytes for storage replication and large-scale big-data workloads
Spanning tree scale: 64 MSTP instances, 512 RSTP instances
Port-channel scaling: Maximum 24 EtherChannels, up to 24 physical ports per LACP fabric port-channel / vPC trunk
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
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
- Software-supported VXLAN bridging and basic BGP EVPN control plane for multi-tenant virtual machine mobility (no hardware tunnel offload vs X-series enhanced 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
- Standard SAN debug counters to track FCoE pause frames and storage buffer credit loss (limited telemetry vs X-series)

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 × 467 mm (1.72 × 17.3 × 18.38 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: 142W with all 48 SFP+ ports fully populated; maximum peak power draw 290W
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
Standard-scale routing table capacity suitable for medium multi-tenant fabrics (expandable via X-series upgrade)
Software VXLAN bridging for virtual machine mobility (no hardware encapsulation offload compared to 10GX enhanced model)

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 standard latency/buffer counters (limited vs X-series enhanced telemetry)

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios for N3K-C3548P-10G Integrated Chassis

Mid-scale financial co-location low-latency trading ToR switch: Algo Boost sub-250ns cut-through latency eliminates PHY-induced latency variance for algorithmic trading workloads, native 48 active SFP+ ports support high-density trading server racks without license upgrades, factory pre-integrated dual redundant power and fan trays remove separate cooling/power FRU procurement overhead, dual airflow FRU options support mixed cold/hot aisle rack layout rules.
Medium-to-large enterprise all-fiber leaf-spine data center leaf switch: 48×10G 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, no port expansion license reduces long-term ownership cost for large fabric pods.
Medium/large HPC and big-data parallel compute cluster rack aggregation: Compact 1RU footprint saves valuable rack space for high-density compute farms, full 48-port native capacity eliminates need for license upgrades as compute farm scales, 18MB total buffer absorbs bursty east-west parallel compute and storage replication traffic.
Medium 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-scale storage deployments with moderate routing scale requirements.
Standardized mass enterprise data center uniform fabric rollout: Factory pre-populated integrated power and cooling FRUs simplify spare part inventory management, bare chassis dual airflow FRU compatibility supports flexible cold/hot aisle rack cooling design planning, cost-effective native 48-port design eliminates recurring license fees for port expansion.

7. Standard Package Contents of N3K-C3548P-10G Integrated Factory SKU

1 × N3K-C3548P-10G Nexus 3548P 1RU base low-latency high-density all-fiber leaf integrated switch chassis (factory pre-installed dual matching airflow AC power supplies + redundant 3+1 fan tray assembly; no SFP+ optical transceivers included)

19-inch rack mounting rails, front cable management brackets

Hardware extraction handle, locking latch, hardware installation guide, global safety & regulatory compliance documentation

Separately Mandatory Components (Not Included in This Bundle)

SFP+ transceivers for all 48 SFP+ fabric ports: 1G/10G SR/LR/ER optical transceivers, Twinax/AOC fiber DAC cables

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

Cisco N3K-C3548P-10G is an End-of-Sale factory integrated low-power 1RU ultra-low-latency cut-through high-density all-fiber Top-of-Rack (ToR) data center switch from the Cisco Nexus 3500 Algo Boost low-latency switching platform, featuring 48 native fully active 1/10G SFP+ fiber ports (no port unlock license required), a fixed non-blocking 960Gbps switching fabric, 18MB total unified dynamic shared packet buffer and standard base memory architecture unique to the-10Gbase variant, optimized for medium/large density 10G fiber leaf-spine data center fabrics, mid-scale HPC compute clusters and entry-level low-latency financial algorithmic trading workloads supporting lossless DCB FCoE unified storage transport. Distinguished from the enhanced X-series N3K-C3548P-10GX by its smaller base buffer, limited standard telemetry and 2GB basic Logflash storage, and differentiated from low-density 24-port N3K-C3524P-10G by its full 48 native active SFP+ ports and doubled switching capacity, this integrated chassis ships factory pre-equipped with dual hot-swappable redundant AC power supplies and 3+1 redundant fan tray assembly, with customer-selectable port-intake (PI) or port-exhaust (PE) airflow hardware to align with mixed cold/hot aisle rack cooling infrastructure requirements. This fixed integrated chassis includes factory pre-installed power and cooling FRUs, eliminating separate spare part procurement overhead; all Layer 2 switching, security, QoS and FCoE storage convergence policies are fully configured, monitored and enforced centrally on upstream Cisco Nexus parent aggregation switches running modular NX-OS. It delivers line-rate native Layer 2 switching, optional licensed full Layer 3 routing, software-supported VXLAN multi-tenant virtualization, POAP zero-touch provisioning, synchronized bulk fleet firmware upgrades and complete vPC high-availability fabric topologies. Limitations require separate optical transceiver procurement for fiber connectivity, software-only VXLAN without hardware tunnel offload compared to later V-series integrated switch generations, smaller base buffer and memory limiting maximum traffic burst and routing table scale, fixed 1RU rack form factor, expired official Cisco hardware support lifecycle, and restricted Layer 3 routing functionality without additional base software license. Compliant with global safety, EMI, NEBS Level 3 and RoHS 6 industrial standards.


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