Cisco N3K-C3548P-10GX Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

N3K-C3548P-10GX (Nexus 3548-X)is an enhanced 1RU ultra-low-latency cut-through Layer 2/3 Top-of-Rack (ToR) integrated switch built on Cisco Algo Boost PHY-less ASIC, released April 1, 2015, End-of-Sale (Jan 31, 2022), End-of-Support-Life (Jan 31, 2027)Cisco. Factory pre-assembled with dual hot-swappable redundant AC power supplies and a 3+1 redundant hot-swappable fan tray; airflow direction (Port-side Intake PI / Port-exhaust PE) is customer-selectable at order time. Targeted for heavy-burst algorithmic financial trading, dense HPC clusters, lossless FCoE/iSCSI storage, and large-scale BGP EVPN multi-tenant leaf-spine fabrics, it delivers consistent sub-250ns deterministic cut-through latency, upgraded 4GB system DRAM, doubled 4GB Logflash persistent storage, advanced nanosecond-level latency telemetry, expanded buffer capacity and optimized VXLAN/EVPN performance compared to base N3K-C3548P-10G modelCisco.

Hardware features48 fixed native 1/10G SFP+ fiber ports(all ports fully active out of box, no license unlock required). Each SFP+ slot supports auto-sensing 1G/10G fiber transceivers, passive Twinax DAC and active AOC cables. Running modular Cisco NX-OS, it supports POAP zero-touch provisioning, single-pane fabric management via Cisco DCNM, OpenFlow 1.3 SDN, full DCB lossless storage features, and complete DevOps automation toolchains including NX-API REST/JSON APIs.

Suffix breakdown definition:
- P: SFP+ fiber optical port platform
- 48: 48 native active 1/10G SFP+ ports (no port license limitation)
- -10GX: Enhanced X-series integrated chassis with expanded memory, dual USB ports, advanced latency monitoring, larger buffer; factory preloaded with dual redundant AC power + 3+1 fan tray, airflow PI/PE selectable at ordering
Core differentiators vs base N3K-C3548P-10G: 4GB DRAM (2× base model), 4GB Logflash (2× base 2GB), dual USB management ports, advanced nanosecond latency telemetry, enhanced multicast NAT, optimized VXLAN/EVPN burst handling, lower power consumption; integrated pre-populated power/cooling hardware vs bare 3172 series; Algo Boost cut-through sub-250ns latency vs microsecond store-and-forward PHY-less ASIC of 3172 platformsCisco.

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
C3548P-10GX: 1RU enhanced X-series integrated low-latency ToR switch chassis
- 3548: High-density 3500 Algo Boost ultra-low-latency platform, 48 native active SFP+ ports
- P: SFP+ fiber optical port design
- 10GX: Enhanced memory integrated chassis, factory pre-installed dual redundant AC power supplies + 3+1 redundant fan tray, airflow PI/PE configurable at order
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

表格

Item	N3K-C3548P-10GX (4GB Enhanced X Integrated Chassis)	N3K-C3548P-10G (2GB Base Integrated Chassis)	N3K-C3548P-XL (16GB Extended Memory Integrated Chassis)
Downlink Ports	48 × SFP+ 1/10G fiber (all active native)	48 × SFP+ 1/10G fiber (all active native)	48 × SFP+ 1/10G fiber (all active native)
Max Breakout Density	192 × 10G via 4×10G breakout per QSFP+	192 × 10G via breakout	192 × 10G via breakout
Switching Capacity	960 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex	960 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex	960 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex
System DRAM	4GB enhanced memory	2GB base memory	16GB XL ultra-large memory
Logflash Storage	4GB expanded persistent storage	2GB basic Logflash	16GB large Logflash
Shared Buffer	18MB total buffer, optimized burst handling	18MB total buffer, basic dynamic pool	18MB total buffer
Latency Telemetry	Advanced nanosecond precision monitoring	Basic standard latency counters	Advanced nanosecond telemetry
USB Ports	Dual USB Type-A management ports	Single USB Type-A port	Dual USB Type-A ports
Multicast NAT	Hardware multicast NAT supported	No hardware multicast NAT	Hardware multicast NAT
Factory Pre-Installed FRUs	Dual redundant AC PSUs + 3+1 redundant fan tray	Dual redundant AC PSUs + 3+1 redundant fan tray	Dual redundant AC PSUs + 3+1 redundant fan tray
Oversubscription Ratio	Non-blocking wire-rate (480Gbps full duplex)	Non-blocking wire-rate	Non-blocking wire-rate
Primary Use Case	Burst-heavy financial HFT, medium/large multi-tenant EVPN fabrics, high-density storage racks	Entry-level low-latency trading, small HPC pods	Massive-scale BGP routing, ultra-large multi-tenant cloud fabrics

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)
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
- Dual USB Type-A flash storage ports for offline firmware upload, configuration backup and POAP zero-touch provisioning files (key upgrade vs single USB on base 10G model)
- 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-1200W 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: Multi-core x86 CPU, 4GB system DRAM, 4GB Logflash eUSB boot media, 1-PPS RF timing sync port for financial trading clock synchronization
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

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; no license key is required to activate all 48 physical ports. Enhanced X-series hardware delivers hardware multicast NAT and advanced nanosecond latency telemetry unavailable on base 10G model.

Front Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

RS232 serial console port for local CLI configuration
1 × 10/100/1000BASE-T copper management port for remote SSH/SNMP/DCNM access
Dual USB Type-A ports for offline config/firmware file import/export (key X-series upgrade)
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 rear 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)
Forwarding latency: Sub-250 nanosecond cut-through deterministic latency via Algo Boost ASIC; Warp mode reduces latency to 190ns for small packet trading workloadsCisco
Dynamic shared packet buffer: 18MB total unified buffer pool with optimized burst scheduling to eliminate packet loss under heavy multi-tenant virtualization and storage replication traffic
MAC address table capacity: 8,000 MAC entry storage
IPv4 Unicast Routing Table: 16,000 LPM prefix entries maximum (expandable to 128,000 via XL upgrade)
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 64 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
- Optimized software-supported VXLAN bridging and BGP EVPN control plane for large-scale multi-tenant virtual machine mobility
- Hardware multicast NAT unique to X-series platforms for trading multicast traffic normalization
- 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 × 43.9 cm × 46.7 cm (1.72 × 17.3 × 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-1200W)

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: 112W with all 48 SFP+ ports fully populated; maximum peak power draw 265W
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 memory and expanded storage for dense multi-tenant fabrics
Software VXLAN bridging for virtual machine mobility (optimized processing vs base 10G model, no hardware tunnel 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-C3548P-10GX Integrated Chassis

Mid-to-large financial co-location low-latency trading ToR switch: Algo Boost sub-250ns cut-through latency eliminates PHY-induced latency variance for algorithmic trading workloads, upgraded 4GB memory and advanced telemetry support dense multi-tenant trading farms, hardware multicast NAT normalizes market data multicast streams, 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 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 tier with non-blocking wire-rate performance, enhanced EVPN handling suits large multi-tenant cloud fabrics, dual USB ports simplify offline config/firmware management.
Medium/large HPC and big-data parallel compute cluster rack aggregation: Compact 1RU footprint saves valuable rack space for medium/high-density compute farms, full 48-port native capacity eliminates need for license upgrades as compute farm scales, large unified buffer eliminates burst packet loss for distributed storage replication workloads.
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 moderate-to-large routing scale requirements.
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-C3548P-10GX Integrated Factory SKU

1 × N3K-C3548P-10GX Nexus 3548X 1RU enhanced low-latency 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 downlink SFP+ 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-10GX 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-X enhanced Algo Boost low-latency switching platform, featuring 48 native fully active 1G/10G SFP+ fiber ports (no port unlock license required), a fixed non-blocking 960Gbps switching fabric, 18MB total unified dynamic shared packet buffer, upgraded 4GB system DRAM and 4GB dual USB persistent Logflash storage unique to the-10GXenhanced X-series variant, optimized for medium/large-scale BGP EVPN multi-tenant cloud fabrics, heavy-burst financial algorithmic trading workloads, mid/large HPC compute clusters and lossless DCB FCoE unified storage transport. Distinguished from entry-level base N3K-C3548P-10G by its doubled memory/storage capacity, dual USB management ports, hardware multicast NAT and advanced nanosecond latency telemetry, this integrated chassis ships factory pre-equipped with dual hot-swappable 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, optimized 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, 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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