Cisco Nexus 9232C Ethernet Switch

The Cisco Nexus 9232C Switch is part of Cisco Nexus 9200 platform switches. The Cisco Nexus 9200 platform consists of industry-leading ultra-high-density fixed-configuration data center switches with line-rate Layer 2 and 3 features that support enterprise applications, service provider hosting, and cloud computing environments. These switches support a wide range of port speeds with flexible combinations of 1/10/25/40/50/100-Gbps connectivity in compact form factors. Using the widely deployed industry-leading Cisco NX-OS Software operating system, the Cisco Nexus 9200 platform is designed for programmable fabric, which offers the flexibility, mobility, and scale needed by service providers and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and cloud providers. It is also designed for programmable networks, which automate configuration and management for customers who want to take advantage of the DevOps model and tool sets.

The Cisco Nexus 9232C Switch (Figure 1) is a 1-rack-unit (1RU) switch that supports 6.4 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth and more than 5.1 billion packets per second (bpps) across thirty-two 100-Gbps Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable 28 (QSFP28) ports. Each port on the 9232C can be individually configured into 1x100-Gbps port, 4 x10-Gbps ports, 4 x 25-Gbps ports, 1 x 40-Gbps port, or 2 x 50-Gbps ports.|

Features and Benefits

The Cisco Nexus 9232C Switch provides the following features and benefits:

High performance and scalability

• The platform provides wire-rate Layer 2 and 3 switching on all ports with up to 6.4 Tbps and over 5.1 bpps of bandwidth.
• With up to 30 MB of shared buffer, the platform is an excellent choice for scalable data centers and big data applications. The capability to fine-tune buffer allocation for nondrop queues makes the Cisco Nexus 9200 platform well suited for IP storage designs.

Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN)

• The platform offers native line-rate VXLAN routing.
• The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) Ethernet Virtual Private Network (EVPN) control plane provides scalable multitenancy and host mobility (refer to the document " VXLAN Network with MP-BGP EVPN Control Plane " for more information).

Hardware and software high availability

• The 64-way equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routing enables the use of Layer 3 fat-tree designs. This feature helps organizations prevent network bottlenecks, increase resiliency, and add capacity with little network disruption.
• Patching helps ensure undisruptive upgrades in most cases.
• The switches use hot-swappable power-supply units (PSUs) and fans with N+1 redundancy.

Purpose-built NX-OS operating system with comprehensive, proven innovations

• Effectively increases available bandwidth on your network
• Supports layer 3 switching for enhanced performance and usability
• Compact form factor allows hassle-free and easy usage with increased efficiency
• Management capability allows maximum efficiency and with unrestricted control
• Up to 10x faster than standard Ethernet server connectivity while providing high-performance uplinks
• Supports optical fiber cable to span longer distances and provided high data transmission rates between servers and network components