Cisco N3K-C3548P-XL Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

• Suffix breakdown definition:
  • P: SFP+ fiber optical port platform
  • 48: 48 native active 1/10G SFP+ ports (all enabled out of box, no license restriction)
  • -XL: Ultra-extended memory flagship chassis with 16GB DRAM + 16GB Logflash, dual USB ports, maximum routing scale support; factory preloaded with dual redundant AC power + 4+1 fan tray, airflow PI/PE selectable at ordering
• Core differentiators vs N3K-C3548P-10G / N3K-C3548P-10GX: 16GB DRAM (4× base 10G model, 4× X-series 4GB variant), 16GB Logflash (4× base storage), expanded 64K MAC address table, maximum 128,000 BGP LPM prefix capacity, enhanced ultra-large-scale EVPN/VXLAN processing, advanced nanosecond precision telemetry, hardware multicast NAT, dual USB ports; 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

1. N3K: Cisco Nexus 3000 Series ultra-low-latency cut-through data center Layer 2/3 switch family
2. C3548P-XL: 1RU flagship XL ultra-extended-memory 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
   • XL: Top-tier extended memory integrated chassis with 16GB DRAM + 16GB Logflash, 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 shutdownCisco.

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 (all ports permanently active out of box, no unlock license required)Cisco
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
   • Dual USB Type-A flash storage ports 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-1200W 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, color-coded FRU handles for airflow identificationCisco
7. Onboard system hardware: 2.5GHz multi-core x86 CPU, 16GB system DRAM, 16GB Logflash eUSB boot media, 1-PPS RF timing sync port for financial trading high-precision clock synchronizationCisco
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 accessories: Serial console rollover cable, out-of-band management Ethernet patch cords, lockable front door, air filter panel
3. 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)

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. Dual USB Type-A ports 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 locator beacon LED for rack identification during maintenance windows

4. Hardware Performance Specifications

1. Total port capacity: 48 × 10G wire-speed ports (all active natively, no license expansion)
2. Total switching fabric bandwidth: 960 Gbps non-blocking full-duplex
3. Wire-speed forwarding throughput: 720 Mpps at minimum 64-byte Ethernet frames (all ports operate full line-rate L2/L3 simultaneously)
4. Forwarding latency: Sub-250 nanosecond cut-through deterministic latency via Algo Boost ASIC; Warp mode reduces latency to 190ns for small-packet trading workloads
5. Dynamic shared packet buffer: 18MB total unified buffer pool with optimized burst scheduling to eliminate packet loss under extreme multi-tenant virtualization and storage replication traffic
6. MAC address table capacity: 64,000 MAC entry storage (8× base 10G model)
7. IPv4 Unicast Routing Table: 128,000 LPM prefix entries maximum (industry-leading for 3500 series)
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 massive-scale multi-tenant virtual machine mobility
    • Hardware multicast NAT exclusive to X/XL 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
    • Ultra-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: 118W with all 48 SFP+ ports fully populated; maximum peak power draw 275W
• 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
• Massive-scale routing table capacity enabled by 16GB XL memory for ultra-large BGP EVPN multi-tenant cloud 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 ultra-precise nanosecond latency counters, extended buffer depth tracking unique to XL flagship hardware

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios for N3K-C3548P-XL Integrated Chassis

1. Large financial co-location ultra-low-latency trading ToR switch: Algo Boost sub-250ns cut-through latency eliminates PHY-induced latency variance for high-frequency algorithmic trading workloads, flagship 16GB memory supports massive multicast market data streams and large BGP routing tables, hardware multicast NAT normalizes cross-farm multicast traffic, 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.
2. Large-scale enterprise all-fiber leaf-spine data center leaf switch: 48 active 10G SFP+ ports serve ultra-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, maximum EVPN/VXLAN scaling suits hyperscale multi-tenant cloud fabrics, dual USB ports simplify offline bulk config/firmware management for large fabric pods.
3. Large HPC and big-data parallel compute cluster rack aggregation: Compact 1RU footprint saves valuable rack space for ultra-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 with extreme traffic spikes.
4. Large 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 large-scale storage deployments with massive BGP routing scale and heavy burst traffic requirements.
5. Standardized mass mixed-airflow hyperscale 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, flagship XL memory and advanced telemetry eliminate congestion and route table overflow incidents in ultra-large multi-tenant fabric pods.

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

Separately Mandatory Components (Not Included in This Bundle)

1. 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