Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series Switch Data Sheet

Product overview

Built for Security, IoT, Mobility, and Cloud

Cisco® Catalyst® 9400 Series switches are Cisco’s lead modular enterprise access switching platform and as part of the Catalyst 9000 family, are built to transform your network to handle a hybrid world where the workplace is anywhere, endpoints could be anything, and applications are hosted all over the place. The Catalyst 9400 Series, including the Catalyst 9400 SUP-2/2XL supervisor and line cards, continues to shape the future with continued innovation that helps you reimagine connections, reinforce security and redefine the experience for your hybrid workforce big and small.

Advanced persistent security threats, exponential growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, mobility everywhere and cloud adoption require a network fabric that integrates advanced hardware and software innovations to automate, secure, and simplify customer networks. The goal of this network fabric is to enable customer revenue growth by accelerating business service rollout.

The Cisco Networking Cloud and Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) is the network fabric that powers business. Cisco Networking Cloud is an open and extensible, software-driven architecture that accelerates and simplifies your enterprise network operations. The programmable architecture frees your IT staff from time-consuming, repetitive network configuration tasks so they can focus instead on innovation that positively transforms your business. SD-Access enables policy-based automation from edge to cloud with foundational capabilities. These include:

●      Simplified device deployment

●      Unified management of wired and wireless networks

●      Network virtualization and segmentation

●      Group-based policies

●      Context-based analytics

The Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series switches are Cisco’s leading modular enterprise switching access, distribution and core platform built for security, IoT and cloud. These switches provide unparalleled investment protection with a chassis architecture that supports up to 9 Tbps of system bandwidth and unmatched power delivery with high density IEEE 802.3bt PoE (60W and 90W). Redundancy is now table stakes across the portfolio. The Catalyst 9400 delivers state-of-the-art High Availability (HA) with capabilities like Cisco StackWise® Virtual technology with In-Service-Software-Upgrade (ISSU), SSO/NSF, uplink resiliency, N+1/N+N redundancy for power supplies. The platform is enterprise optimized with an innovative dual-serviceable fan tray design, side to side airflow and is closet-friendly with ~16” depth. A single system can scale up to 384 access ports with your choice of 10G, 5G and 2.5G multigigabit copper, 1G copper, Cisco UPOE®+, Cisco UPOE and PoE+ options, up to 384 ports of 10G and 1G Fiber, up to 164 ports 25G SFP28 options. The availability of 1/10 G fiber ports facilitate aggregation of existing small form factor fixed access switches. The addition of the new SUP-2/2XL supervisors allows unique investment protection through 100G uplink connectivity option which is becoming a popular alternative to 40G in the core. The platform also supports advanced routing and infrastructure services, SD-Access capabilities, and network system virtualization. These features enable optional placement of the platform in the core and aggregation layers of small to medium-sized campus environments.

Cisco DNA Software

Cisco DNA Software offers a valuable and flexible way to buy software for the access, WAN, and data center domains. At each stage in the product lifecycle, Cisco DNA Software helps make buying, managing, and upgrading your network and infrastructure software easier. Cisco DNA Software provides:

●      Flexible licensing models to smoothly distribute customers’ software spending over time

●      Investment protection for software purchases through software services–enabled license portability

●      Access to updates, upgrades, and new technology from Cisco through Cisco® Software Support Services (SWSS)

●      Lower cost of entry with the new Cisco DNA Subscription for Switching model

●      Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series switches support hosting Cisco Spaces natively on the CPU complex (included with Cisco DNA Advantage license). Cisco Spaces IoT Services on Catalyst 9000 switches bridges wired smart building technology using the power of data to help speed return to a trusted workplace and the inevitable return-to-office. Cisco Spaces is included as part of Catalyst 9400 Cisco DNA Advantage subscription

●      Access to end-to-end service assurance through Cisco ThousandEyes* Network and Application Synthetics (included with Cisco DNA Advantage licenses)

Cisco Networking Cloud lets you manage your entire switching structure as a single, converged component. With one management system and one policy for wired and wireless networks, it offers an efficient way to provide more secure access.

* The Cisco ThousandEyes credits per customer included as part of Catalyst 9400 Cisco DNA Advantage subscriptions will be limited to 110,000,000 units of test capacity. Cisco ThousandEyes Cloud Agent access is not included in the Cisco DNA license entitlement. Test capacity can be increased and Cloud Agents accessed with purchase of additional Cisco ThousandEyes Network and Application Synthetics.

Product highlights

●      The Cisco Unified Access Data Plane (UADP) 3.0sec ASIC on C9400X-SUP-2XL, C9400X-SUP-2 and Cisco Unified Access Data Plane (UADP) 2.0 ASIC on C9400-SUP-1/1XL/1XL-Y is ready for next- generation technologies with its programmable pipeline, microengine capabilities, and template-based configurable allocation of Layer 2, Layer 3, forwarding, Access Control List (ACL), and Quality of Service (QoS) entries

●      Intel 2.4-GHz x86 with up to 960 GB of SATA SSD local storage for container-based application hosting

●      Up to 4 non-blocking 100/40 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks and up to 4 non-blocking 25/10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks on Supervisor-2/2XL

●      Up to 2 non-blocking 25 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks on Supervisor-1XL-Y

●      Up to 2 non-blocking 40 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks (Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable [QSFP]) and up to 8 non-blocking 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks (SFP+) on Supervisor-1/1XL/1XL-Y

●      Up to 384 ports of non-blocking 10/100/1000M RJ-45 ports

●      Up to 392 ports of non-blocking 1 Gigabit Ethernet Fiber (SFP) ports (Sup1/1XL/XL-Y). Up to 384 ports of non- blocking 1Gigabit Ethernet Fiber (SFP) ports (SUP2/2XL)

●      Up to 392 ports of non-blocking 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ ports (8 uplinks plus 384 10G line card ports) (Sup1/1XL/XL-Y); 388 ports of non-blocking 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ ports (4 uplinks plus 384 10G line cards ports) (SUP2/2XL)

●      Up to 168 ports of 25 Gigabit Ethernet SFP28 ports (8 25G uplinks plus 160 25G line cards ports) (SUP2/2XL)

●      Up to 36 ports of 100 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP28 ports (4 100G uplinks plus 32 100G line cards ports) (SUP2/2XL)

●      Up to 384 ports of non-blocking 10G/5G mGig RJ-45 ports

●      Cisco UPOE®+ (90 W), Cisco UPOE (60W), and PoE+ (30W) capabilities on 384 ports simultaneously

●      Line rate hardware-based Flexible NetFlow (FNF) delivering flow collection up to 384,000 flows

●      IPv6 support in hardware, providing wire rate forwarding for IPv6 networks

●      Dual-stack support for IPv4 and IPv6 and dynamic hardware forwarding table allocations for ease of IPv4-to-IPv6 migration

●      Scalable routing (IPv4, IPv6, and multicast) tables and Layer 2 tables

●      Open Cisco IOS® XE: This modern operating system for the enterprise provides support for model-driven programmability, on-box Python scripting, streaming telemetry, container-based application hosting and patching for critical bug fixes. The OS also has built-in defenses to protect against runtime attacks

●      End-to-end visualization of the path from campus/branch to clouds/DC with Cisco ThousandEyes Network and Application Synthetics (included with Cisco DNA Advantage licenses)

SD-Access

The Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series form the foundation building block for SD-Access – Cisco’s leading enterprise architecture, which includes:

◦    Policy-based automation from edge to cloud

◦    Segmentation and micro-segmentation made easy, with having predictable performance and scalability

◦    Automation through Cisco DNA Center

◦    Policy through the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

◦    Network assurance through Network Data Platform

◦    The ability to launch new business services faster and improve issue resolution time significantly

●      SD-Access Embedded Wireless: The Cisco Catalyst 9800 embedded Wireless Controller Software package can be installed on Cisco Catalyst 9400 Series switches to enable wireless controller functionality for distributed branches and small campuses. Once installed, the Catalyst 9800 embedded Wireless Controller running on a Catalyst 9400 Series switch can support up to 200 APs and 4000 Clients. A maximum two wireless controllers can be enabled per site on two different Catalyst 9400 Series switches which will increase to scale up to 200 APs and 4000 Wireless Clients. The Catalyst 9800 embedded Wireless Controller Software package will enable wireless functionality only for SD-Access deployments with two supported topologies:

◦    The Catalyst 9800 embedded Wireless Controller Software package can be enabled on Catalyst 9400 Series switches functioning as Co-Located Border and Control Plane

◦    Catalyst 9800 Wireless Software Package can be enabled on Catalyst 9400 Series switches functioning as Fabric in a Box

●      Plug and Play (PnP) enabled: A simple, secure, unified, and integrated offering eases new branch or campus device rollouts and can also be used for providing updates to an existing network

●      Advanced security

◦    Cisco Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA)1: You benefit from the power of machine learning to identify and take actions toward threats or anomalies in your network, including malware detection in encrypted traffic (without decryption) and distributed anomaly detection

◦    AES-2562 support with the powerful MACsec-256 encryption algorithm is available in hardware

◦    Trustworthy solutions: Secure Unique Device Identification (SUDI) support for PnP tamper-proof device identity capability secures zero-touch provisioning by allowing your device to show a certificate to the server to be able to get onto your network