Cisco C9606R Full Product Description

1. Short Overview

• C9600: Catalyst 9600 high-speed modular campus core switch platform
• 6: Total 6 horizontal internal slots
• R: Redundant high-availability chassis design (supports dual supervisors, N+1 redundant power and fan trays)

Core Differentiators

1. vs C9604R: C9604R is a 4-slot compact core; C9606R offers 4 line card slots for higher port scalability for medium/large campuses.
2. vs C9610R flagship chassis: C9610R has 8 line card slots for ultra-large-scale deployments; C9606R balances density, rack space and cost for mainstream enterprise core use cases.
3. vs Catalyst 9400 series: C9400 targets distribution layer; C9600 series delivers Silicon One ASIC, 100G/400G native support and larger forwarding tables for campus/data center core backbone.

2. Chassis Slot Architecture & Hardware Capacity

Slot Layout (6 horizontal slots, top to bottom 1–6)

• Slots 1 & 2: Dual redundant supervisor engine slots (1+1 SUP deployment for HA)
• Slots 3,4,5,6: 4 hot-swappable line card slots for uplink/access modules

Backplane Bandwidth & Forwarding

• Maximum wired switching capacity: 25.6 Tbps (hardware-capable with C9600X-SUP-2)Cisco
• Per-slot full-duplex bandwidth: 6.4 Tbps wire-speed non-blocking
• Inter-supervisor interconnect bandwidth: 400 Gbps for stateful synchronizationCisco
• Max forwarding rate: Up to 8 Bpps with Supervisor 2; 3 Bpps with Supervisor 1

Maximum Supported Port Density (4 fully populated line card slots)

1. Fiber options
   • 400G QSFP-DD: Up to 8 ports total
   • 100G/40G QSFP28: Up to 128 ports total
   • 50G/25G SFP56/SFP28: Up to 224 ports total
   • 10G/1G SFP+/SFP: Up to 384 ports via breakout adapters
2. Copper multigigabit RJ45
   • Up to 192 × 10G/5G/2.5G/1G mGig PoE++ ports (with dedicated copper line cards)Cisco

Supported Supervisor Engines

• C9600-SUP-1 (Gen1, up to 3 Bpps forwarding)
• C9600X-SUP-2 (Gen2 Silicon One, full 25.6 Tbps capacity, 8 Bpps forwarding, SSD storage expansion)Cisco

Power Supply Specifications

• Up to 4 hot-swappable PSU bays, supports N+1 or N+N redundant power modes
• Power supply types: Platinum/Titanium high-efficiency AC (2kW / 3kW / 6kW), Platinum DC, HVDC
• Input range: AC 90–264V 47–63Hz; DC -40V ~ -72V
• All PSUs meet ≥90% efficiency for energy savingCisco

Cooling System

• Single hot-swappable N+1 redundant fan tray, side-to-side horizontal airflow (inlet left, exhaust right)
• Full front-panel access for fan tray, optional rear access for cable management optimizationCisco
• Fan speed auto-adjust based on internal temperature to reduce acoustic noise

3. Physical & Environmental Specifications

Physical Dimensions & Weight

• Form factor: 8 RU rack-mount chassis
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 13.95 × 17.4 × 16.1 inches (35.43 × 44.20 × 40.89 cm)Cisco
• Base weight (chassis + 2 AC PSUs + fan tray): 63.0 lb (31.31 kg)ManualsLib

Operating Environment

• Normal operating temperature: -5°C ~ +40°C up to 3000m altitude; -5°C ~ +50°C up to 1800m short-term
• Storage/transport temperature: -40°C ~ +75°C
• Humidity: 10%–95% RH non-condensing
• Compliance: UL 60950-1, IEC 60950-1, EN 60950-1, CSA-C22.2, GB 4943, NEBS seismic, RoHS, EMC Class ACisco

Asset Security Hardware

• Embedded passive UHF RFID tags on chassis, supervisors, line cards, PSUs and fan tray for centralized asset lifecycle tracking
• ACT2 secure authentication chip on all hot-swappable modules to detect unauthorized third-party hardware insertionCisco

4. High Availability (HA) Native Capabilities

1. Dual 1+1 supervisor redundancy
   • SSO (Stateful Switchover), NSF (Non-Stop Forwarding) for zero packet loss during supervisor failover
   • Full ISSU (In-Service Software Upgrade) for IOS XE version upgrades without traffic interruption
2. Modular OIR support
   All supervisors, line cards, power supplies and fan trays support hot insertion/removal without chassis power shutdown
3. Power redundancy
   N+1 or full N+N PSU deployment to withstand single/multiple power supply failures
4. Fan tray N+1 redundant fan design; single fan fault does not impact chassis cooling
5. StackWise Virtual: Two C9606R chassis can form a single logical virtual switch for multi-chassis HA fabric core

5. IOS XE Software & Security Feature Suite

Campus & SD-Access Fabric Core Functions

• Native VXLAN EVPN hardware forwarding for Cisco SD-Access intent-based wired/wireless fabric
• Large-scale L2/L3 table capacity (MAC, IPv4/IPv6 route, ACL tables) optimized for multi-building campus
• 32-way ECMP load balancing, BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS full routing protocol stack
• PVLAN, cross-card LACP/PAGP EtherChannel, MSTP/RSTP spanning tree toolkit

Hardware-Accelerated Security

• IEEE 802.1AE MACsec-256 port-level encryption for fiber/copper uplinks
• TrustSec SGT end-to-end policy segmentation, Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA)
• Hardware ACL filtering, CoPP control plane protection, DHCP Snooping, DAI, IP Source Guard
• IEEE 802.1X, MAB, WebAuth wired access authentication, AAA TACACS+/RADIUS/LDAP

QoS & Precision Timing

• 8 hardware priority queues per port, WRR/DRR scheduling, per-port policing/marking/shaping
• IEEE 1588v2 PTP hardware timing for video, voice and industrial synchronization

Automation & Observability

• Model-driven programmability: NETCONF, RESTCONF, YANG, gNMI, on-box Python scripting
• Real-time streaming telemetry, IPFIX flow export, full buffer/latency monitoring
• GOLD non-disruptive online diagnostics for chassis and module health inspection
• Native integration with Cisco DNA Center for zero-touch provisioning, policy management and lifecycle automation

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Medium/Large Enterprise Campus Core Switch
   Dual redundant C9606R virtual pair as the central SD-Access fabric border; 10G/25G fiber uplinks to Catalyst 9400 distribution switches, supporting thousands of wired and Wi-Fi 6/6E wireless endpoints.
2. Mid-Size Hybrid Data Center Spine Backbone
   40G/100G QSFP28 line cards connect leaf switches, storage arrays and multi-cloud gateways; VRF multi-tenancy logically isolates enterprise, virtual server and cloud workloads.
3. High-Density Unified Wireless Aggregation Core
   25G SFP56 uplinks to wireless controllers, supporting massive multi-radio AP fleets; hardware QoS prioritizes voice, video and real-time collaboration traffic.
4. Smart Building & Industrial Campus Backbone
   Long-distance single-mode fiber trunking for distributed industrial IoT controllers, surveillance camera subnets and building automation gateways; MACsec secures critical control plane transport.
5. Education & Government Multi-Building Core
   High-availability redundant chassis design meets public sector network uptime requirements; centralized security and power policy management via Cisco DNA Center.

7. Standard Package Contents of C9606R Base Chassis SKU

Separately Sold Mandatory Components

• 1 or 2 supervisor engines (C9600-SUP-1 / C9600X-SUP-2)
• AC/DC/Titanium/Platinum power supply modules (minimum 2 for basic redundancy)
• Catalyst 9600 series line cards (fiber SFP/SFP28/QSFP28/QSFP-DD or multigigabit copper PoE++ modules)
• SFP/SFP28/QSFP28/QSFP-DD optical transceivers, breakout adapters and fiber patch cords
• Optional SSD storage upgrades for supervisors, spare fan trays and spare PSUs

Software Licenses

• DNA Advantage perpetual license required for full SD-Access EVPN, MACsec, streaming telemetry and advanced automation features
• DNA Essentials base license for fundamental Layer 2/Layer 3 switching and routing functionality

Short Commercial Catalog Summary for Quotation