Cisco C9400-LC-24XY Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

Suffix Breakdown

• C9400: Catalyst 9400 modular core/aggregation switch platform
• LC: Line Card modular uplink module
• 24: Total 24 front-facing physical fiber ports
• XY: Multi-rate SFP/SFP+/SFP28 interface (1G/10G/25G dual-speed; X = 10G SFP+, Y = 25G SFP28)

Critical Compatibility Restriction

Core Differentiators

1. vs C9400-LC-24XS: LC-24XS maxes at 10G; LC-24XY adds native 25G SFP28 support for higher-bandwidth fabric uplinks.
2. vs copper PoE line cards (LC-48H/48HN): Pure fiber uplink module without inline PoE, optimized for long-distance high-speed trunking instead of end-user wired access.
3. vs C9400-LC-12QC: LC-12QC supports 40G/100G QSFP; LC-24XY provides higher port density of 25G at lower cost for leaf aggregation.

2. Hardware & Bandwidth Specifications

Port Speed & Partition Rules

• Ports 1–4: Support 1G SFP / 10G SFP+ only
• Ports 5–24: Support 1G SFP / 10G SFP+ / 25G SFP28 (default mode: 20×25G + 4×10G)Cisco
  Supported transceivers:
• SFP: 1000BASE-SX/LX/EX/ZX Gigabit optical, Cu-SFP copper
• SFP+: 10GBASE-SR/LR/ER/ZR 10 Gigabit optical, Cu-SFP+
• SFP28: 25GBASE-SR/LR 25 Gigabit fiber transceivers
  Mixed transceiver types can coexist on the same card without slot grouping limits.

Backplane Bandwidth

• Per-slot full wire-speed bandwidth: 480 Gbps bidirectional (only with SUP-2XL)Cisco
• Aggregate full-duplex throughput: 480 Gbps non-blocking for all 24 ports simultaneously
• Jumbo frame support: L2–L4 jumbo frames up to 9216 bytes

Hardware Acceleration Features

1. IEEE 802.1AE MACsec-256 port-level hardware encryption for secure fiber transport
2. IEEE 1588v2 / 802.1AS PTP hardware timing for audio/video broadcast and industrial synchronization
3. Wire-speed L2/L3/L4 ACL, QoS policing, NAT and routing forwarding

Physical & Power Parameters

• Form Factor: Standard full-width Catalyst 9400 line card, fits all empty line card slots of C9404R / C9407R / C9410R
• Typical full-load power consumption: 230W
• Rated MTBF: 510,320 hours under nominal operating environment
• Asset tracking: Front-mounted passive UHF RFID tag for network asset management
• Cooling: Passive multi-heatsink design, relies on chassis side-to-side shared airflow; no independent onboard fan
• No PoE function: Does not supply IEEE 802.3af/at/bt inline power to endpoints

Maximum Chassis Port Density (Fully Populated with LC-24XY)

3. Front Panel Layout & Status LEDs

1. 24 SFP/SFP+/SFP28 port slots arranged in two horizontal rows (12 ports per row)
2. Per-port bi-color link/activity LED for each transceiver slot:
   • Solid Green: Valid link, normal operation
   • Blinking Green: Bidirectional data transmission/reception
   • Solid Amber: Link down, missing transceiver, port fault or error alarm
3. Global module status indicators at card edge:
   • STATUS LED: Green = online operational; Amber = booting/initialization; Red = critical hardware failure
   • LOCATE blue beacon LED: For remote rack identification during maintenance
4. Dual mechanical ejector latches on both sides to support OIR hot insertion/removal without chassis power shutdown

4. IOS XE Full Software Feature Set

Layer 2 Campus Switching Functions

• IEEE 802.1Q VLAN trunking (4096 maximum VLANs), PVLAN private VLAN segmentation for multi-tenant isolation
• Cross-line-card LACP/PAGP EtherChannel link aggregation for redundant high-speed uplink trunks
• RSTP/MSTP spanning tree suite with BPDU guard, root guard, loop guard and UplinkFast convergence
• DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI), IP Source Guard and MAC port security
• IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet for idle port power reduction

Layer 3 & SD-Access EVPN Fabric Capabilities

• Hardware-accelerated IPv4 / IPv6 unicast & multicast routing (static, OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, IS-IS, basic MPLS edge features)
• Up to 32-way ECMP equal-cost multi-path uplink load balancing
• Native VXLAN EVPN data plane forwarding for Cisco SD-Access enterprise fabric core/border nodes
• Anycast gateway, LISP host mobility and large-scale overlay traffic aggregation
• Hardware VRF-lite multi-tenancy segmentation, supporting up to 1000 independent VRF instances

Security & QoS Hardware Features

• 8 independent hardware priority queues per port, WRR/DRR congestion scheduling, traffic policing, marking and shaping
• L2/L3/L4 hardware ACL policy enforcement, CoPP control plane policing to protect supervisor CPU
• TrustSec SGT tag classification and end-to-end policy propagation across the entire fabric
• Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) for hidden malware threat detection over encrypted uplinks
• IEEE 802.1X, MAB, WebAuth wired access authentication, AAA TACACS+/RADIUS/LDAP secure authentication

Automation, Programmability & Observability

• Model-driven programmability: NETCONF, RESTCONF, YANG data models, REST API
• POAP zero-touch automated provisioning for mass fabric deployment
• Real-time streaming telemetry, IPFIX flow export, continuous port latency/buffer utilization monitoring
• GOLD non-disruptive online diagnostic tests for ongoing line card health inspection
• Full native integration with Cisco DNA Center single-pane-of-glass lifecycle management

5. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Hyperscale Multi-Building Campus SD-Access Fabric Core
   20×25G high-speed fiber trunks connect remote campus aggregation switches to core C9400 chassis; cross-card EtherChannels deliver redundant low-latency overlay traffic transport for large EVPN fabric deployments.
2. Medium-to-Large Hybrid Data Center Leaf/Spine Switch
   Cost-effective 25G SFP28 uplinks to data center spine switches, supporting multi-tenant VRF segmentation for enterprise, cloud and virtual server workloads.
3. Ultra-Dense Wi-Fi 6/6E Wireless Controller Aggregation
   25G fiber trunks aggregate thousands of enterprise wireless access points to campus core switches; hardware QoS prioritizes voice/video real-time wireless client traffic.
4. Industrial Smart Building & IoT Backbone
   Long-distance single-mode fiber links connect distributed industrial controllers, IP surveillance subnets and building automation gateways; hardware MACsec encryption secures critical IoT control traffic, TrustSec segmentation isolates vulnerable IoT subnets from corporate user networks.
5. Service Provider Edge Enterprise Handover
   Mixed 10G/25G fiber uplinks to carrier routers, redundant EtherChannel design ensures resilient hybrid cloud and internet breakout connectivity for large enterprise tenants.

6. Standard Package Contents of C9400-LC-24XY SKU

Separately Required Accessories

• SFP (1G) / SFP+ (10G) / SFP28 (25G) optical transceivers or Cu-SFP/Cu-SFP+ copper modules
• Single/multi-mode fiber patch cords, Twinax copper cables
• Catalyst 9400 series chassis, C9400X-SUP-2 / SUP-2XL supervisors, power supplies and fan tray (sold independently)

Short Commercial Catalog Summary for Quotation