Cisco C9400-LC-48S Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

Suffix Breakdown

• C9400: Catalyst 9400 modular core/aggregation switch platform
• LC: Line Card modular fiber uplink/aggregation module
• 48: Total 48 front-facing independent SFP port slots
• S: SFP-only Gigabit fiber interface (only supports 1G SFP transceivers, differentiated from 10G-capable LC-24XS, 25G LC-24XY and 40G/100G LC-12QC)

Core Differentiators

1. vs C9400-LC-24S: LC-24S provides only 24 SFP ports; LC-48S doubles port density to 48 for higher-scale fiber aggregation.
2. vs 10G/25G fiber line cards (LC-24XS/24XY/12QC): LC-48S limited to native 1G SFP speeds, cost-optimized for Gigabit-only fiber links instead of high-bandwidth fabric core trunking.
3. vs copper PoE line cards (LC-48T/48P/48U/48HN): Pure fiber module without inline PoE power, designed for long-distance trunking rather than end-user desktop access.
4. vs multi-rate fiber modules: Single-speed 1G-only design with simpler hardware and lower total power consumption.

2. Hardware & Bandwidth Specifications

Port & Bandwidth Parameters

1. Port Count: 48 independent hot-pluggable SFP slots, all non-blocking full-duplex 1Gbps
2. Native Supported Speed: 100BASE-FX / 1000BASE-SX/LX/EX/ZX Gigabit Ethernet only
3. Compatible Transceiver Types
   • Optical SFPs: Short-reach multimode, long-reach single-mode, extended long-haul fiber SFPs
   • Cu-SFP modules: 10/100/1000BASE-T copper SFP for short-distance copper interconnections
4. Backplane Slot Bandwidth
   • With Gen1 supervisors (C9400-SUP-1 / SUP-1XL): 80 Gbps per slot bandwidth
   • With Gen2 UADP 3.0 supervisors (C9400X-SUP-2 / SUP-2XL): 240 Gbps full wire-speed non-blocking bandwidth for all 48 ports simultaneously
5. Aggregate Full-Duplex Throughput: 48 Gbps bidirectional wire-speed capacity for all ports active at once
6. Jumbo Frame Support: Layer 2–Layer 4 jumbo frames up to 9216 bytes for large file, video and storage workloads

Built-In Hardware Acceleration

1. IEEE 802.1AE MACsec-256 port-level hardware encryption to secure fiber trunk transport
2. IEEE 1588v2 / 802.1AS PTP hardware timing for broadcast video, voice and industrial network synchronization
3. Wire-speed L2/L3/L4 ACL filtering, QoS policing, marking, shaping and full IPv4/IPv6 routing forwarding
4. IEEE 802.3az Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) to reduce power consumption on idle unused SFP ports

Physical & Power Parameters

• Form Factor: Standard full-width Catalyst 9400 line card, compatible with all empty line card slots of C9404R / C9407R / C9410R chassis
• Typical Full-Load Power Consumption: 180W
• Rated MTBF: 862,730 hours under nominal standard operating environment
• Asset Tracking: Front-mounted passive UHF RFID tag for enterprise network asset lifecycle management
• Cooling: Passive heatsink design, fully reliant on chassis side-to-side shared airflow; no independent onboard fan
• No PoE Function: This module cannot supply any IEEE 802.3af/at/bt inline power to connected end devices

Maximum Chassis Port Density (Fully Populated with LC-48S)

Supervisor Compatibility

3. Front Panel Layout & Status LEDs

1. 48 SFP port slots arranged in two horizontal rows (24 ports per row)
2. Per-port bi-color link/activity LED for each SFP slot:
   • Solid Green: Valid optical link established, normal operation
   • Blinking Green: Bidirectional data transmission/reception
   • Solid Amber: Link down, missing transceiver, cable fault or port error alarm
3. Global module status indicators at card edge:
   • STATUS LED: Green = module detected, initialized and online operational; Amber = booting/initialization/minor warning; Red = critical hardware failure or backplane communication error
   • LOCATE blue beacon LED: Remotely activated to identify the line card during rack maintenance
4. Dual mechanical ejector latches on both sides to support OIR hot insertion/removal without full chassis power shutdown

4. IOS XE Comprehensive 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 fiber trunk uplinks
• RSTP/MSTP spanning tree suite with BPDU guard, root guard, loop guard and UplinkFast fast convergence
• DHCP Snooping, Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI), IP Source Guard and MAC address 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 routes, OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, IS-IS)
• Up to 32-way ECMP equal-cost multi-path uplink load balancing
• Native VXLAN EVPN data plane forwarding for Cisco SD-Access enterprise fabric edge aggregation
• Anycast gateway, LISP host mobility and overlay user traffic trunk aggregation
• Hardware VRF-lite multi-tenancy segmentation, supporting up to 1000 independent isolated 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 resources
• TrustSec SGT tag classification and end-to-end policy propagation across the entire enterprise fabric
• Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA) for hidden malware threat detection over fiber trunk links
• IEEE 802.1X, MAB, WebAuth wired access authentication, AAA TACACS+/RADIUS/LDAP secure authentication

Automation, Programmability & Observability

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

5. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Large Multi-Building Campus Gigabit Fiber Aggregation
   48 high-density 1G SFP ports connect remote campus buildings via single/multimode fiber; cross-card EtherChannels provide redundant inter-building trunks to core Catalyst 9400 chassis for SD-Access EVPN fabric traffic aggregation.
2. Medium Data Center Low-Speed Storage & Server Downlinks
   Cost-effective Gigabit fiber connections to storage arrays, rack top switches and low-speed server clusters; isolated VRF segmentation separates multi-department and multi-tenant workloads.
3. Industrial Smart Building & IoT Fiber Backbone
   Long-distance single-mode fiber links connect distributed industrial controllers, IP camera subnets and building automation gateways; hardware QoS prioritizes low-latency industrial control traffic, TrustSec segmentation isolates vulnerable IoT subnets from corporate user networks.
4. Hybrid Cloud & Service Provider Edge Handover
   Economical Gigabit fiber uplinks to carrier routers and regional branch aggregation switches; redundant EtherChannel design ensures resilient internet and hybrid cloud breakout connectivity.
5. Education & Government Campus Fiber Infrastructure
   High-density low-cost Gigabit fiber trunking for student lab subnets, remote classroom buildings and surveillance camera subnets, centralized policy management via Cisco DNA Center.

6. Standard Package Contents of C9400-LC-48S SKU

Separately Mandatory & Optional Add-On Components

1. Mandatory Accessories
   • SFP optical transceivers (SX/LX/EX/ZX) or Cu-SFP copper modules
   • Single/multi-mode fiber patch cords, short-distance copper twinax cables
   • Catalyst 9400 series chassis, supervisors, power supplies and fan tray (sold independently)
2. Optional Accessories
   • Extended-reach long-haul single-mode SFP transceivers for cross-campus long-distance links
3. Software Licenses
   • DNA Advantage perpetual license required for full VXLAN EVPN SD-Access, advanced MACsec security, streaming telemetry and end-to-end automation feature set
   • DNA Essentials base license for fundamental Layer 2/Layer 3 switching functionality

Short Commercial Catalog Summary for Quotation