Cisco Nexus N9K-C9348D-GX2A 48-Port 400G QSFP-DD Switch

The N9K-C9348D-GX2A is a 2RU Nexus 9300-GX2 switch with 48 fixed 400G QSFP-DD ports and 2 fixed 1/10G SFP+ ports. The QSFP-DD ports also run at 200G, 100G and 40G, and each port supports 4x10G, 4x25G, 4x50G, 4x100G and 2x200G breakout. All 48 ports support wire-rate MACsec encryption. Total bandwidth is 38.4 Tbps at 8.35 billion packets per second, with a 120 MB buffer.

Cooling is four hot-swappable fans in a 3+1 arrangement with port-side intake airflow. The power supply is a hot-swappable 3200W AC unit taking 100 to 240 V AC at 50 to 60 Hz, with efficiency of 90 percent or more at 20 to 100 percent load. Typical draw is 1380 W and maximum draw is 3124 W. Fan noise is 79.9 dBA at 50 percent speed, 87.6 dBA at 70 percent and 96.4 dBA at 100 percent.

The control plane has a 6-core CPU, 32 GB of system memory and a 128 GB SSD, plus management ports of one 10/100/1000BASE-T and one 1-Gbps SFP, one USB port and one RS-232 console port. The switch runs in NX-OS mode, or in ACI mode as a leaf or spine. Optics are bought separately.

Software is licensed through Cisco Smart Accounts in Essentials, Advantage and Premier tiers, each in 3, 5 or 7-year terms, with a 90-day evaluation license available. An add-on license is needed with the switch. Scale reaches 1 million IPv4 LPM routes, 1 million IPv4 host entries and 500K MAC entries. The chassis is 3.45 x 17.41 x 29.83 in and weighs 51.2 lb without power supplies and fans; MTBF is 125,780 hours.