Product overview

Product highlights

●      Highest wireless scale for Wi-Fi 6 and 802.11ac Wave 2 access points supported on a single switch with select models

●      Catalyst 9300 and Catalyst 9300L/LM models are based on the Cisco UADP 2.0 Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) with programmable pipeline and micro-engine capabilities, along with template-based, configurable allocation of Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding, Access Control Lists (ACLs), and Quality of Service (QoS) entries

●      Catalyst 9300X models are based on UADP 2.0sec ASIC which adds line rate support for Crypto, including 100G hardware-based IPsec

●      x86 CPU complex with 8-GB memory, and 16 GB of flash and external USB 3.0 SSD pluggable storage slot (delivering up to 240GB of storage with an option SSD drive) to host containers. C9300X models support 16GB of memory

●      USB 2.0 slot to load system images and set configurations

●      Up to 1 TBps of local stackable switching bandwidth with Catalyst 9300X models

●      Deeper buffer and higher scale model options for rich multi-media content delivery applications

●      Flexible and dense uplink offerings with 100G, 40G, 25G, Multigigabit, 10G, and 1G as fixed or modular uplinks

●      Easy transition from 40G to 100G and 10G to 25G with dual-rate optics

●      Flexible downlink options with 25G, 10G and 1G Copper and Fiber as well as the densest Multigigabit links

●      With a mix of Copper (1G up to 10G) and Fiber (1G up to 25G) supported in a single stack, multiple flexible deployment scenarios are enabled, including 2-Tier, 3-Tier and Hybrid architectures

●      Leading PoE capabilities with up to 384 ports of PoE per stack, PoE+, and 288 ports high density IEEE 802.3bt - 90W UPOE+, and 60W Cisco UPOE

●      Intelligent Power Management with Cisco StackPower technology, providing power stacking among members for power redundancy. StackPower pools the power supplies across the stack to be used redundancy and supplemental power purposes

●      Line-rate, hardware-based Flexible NetFlow (FNF), delivering flow collection of up to 128,000 flows with select models

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

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

●      Support for both static and dynamic NAT and Port Address Translation (PAT)

●      IEEE 802.1ba AV Bridging (AVB) built in to provide a better audio and video experience through improved time synchronization and QoS

●      Precision Time Protocol (PTP; IEEE 1588v2) provides accurate clock synchronization with sub-microsecond accuracy making it suitable for distribution and synchronization of time and frequency over network

●      Cisco IOS XE, a modern operating system for the enterprise with support for model-driven programmability including NETCONF, RESTCONF, YANG, 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 license)

●      SD-Access: Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switches form the foundational building block for SD-Access, Cisco’s lead enterprise architecture:

◦    Policy-based automation from edge to cloud

◦    Simplified segmentation and micro-segmentation, with predictable performance and scalability

◦    Automation through Cisco DNA Center

◦    Policy handled through the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

◦    Network assurance provided through the Cisco DNA Center

◦    Faster launch of new business services and significantly improved issue resolution time

●      Plug and Play (PnP) enabled: A simple, secure, unified, and integrated offering to ease new branch or campus device rollouts or updates to an existing network

●      Advanced security

◦    Encrypted Traffic Analytics (ETA): 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

◦    Support for AES-256 with the powerful MACsec 256-bit encryption algorithm available on all models

◦    Trustworthy solutions: Hardware anchored Secure Boot and Secure Unique Device Identification (SUDI) support for Plug and Play, to verify the identity of the hardware and software

Platform details

Switch models and configurations

Table 1.        Product Family Configurations

^*Need to order HSec Key for IPsec Feature.

The Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series is made up of nineteen modular uplink switch models and fourteen fixed uplink switch models.

Figure 1.           

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switches

Table 2 lists port scale and power details for the Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series models.

Table 2.        Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switch configurations

¹C9300LM models use different power supplies compared to C9300, C9300X and C9300L models

Network modules

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switches (C9300X and C9300 SKUs) support optional network modules for uplink ports (Figure 2). These field-replaceable network modules with 25G and 40G speeds in the Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series enable greater architectural flexibility and infrastructure investment protection by allowing a nondisruptive migration from 10G to 25G and beyond. The default switch configuration does not include the network module. When you purchase the switch, you can choose from the network modules described in Table 2.

Figure 2.           

Cisco Catalyst 9300X Network Modules

Figure 3.           

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Network Modules

Table 3.        Network module numbers and descriptions

^*C9300X-NM-4C is compatible only with C9300X-48HX, C9300X-48TX and C9300X-24Y models

Please note: Catalyst 3850 and Catalyst 9300 network modules are supported on the Catalyst 9300 models. Catalyst 9300X network modules are only supported on the Catalyst 9300X models.

For additional details, please read our FAQs: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-9300-series-switches/nb-09-cat-9k-faq-cte-en.pdf.

Power supplies

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switches support dual redundant power supplies. The switches ship with one power supply by default, and the second power supply can be purchased when the switch is ordered or at a later time. If only one power supply is installed, it should always be in power supply bay #1. The switches also ship with three field-replaceable fans. Power Supplies are common across the Catalyst 9300 Series.

Figure 4.           

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Dual Redundant power supplies

Table 4 lists the different power supplies available in these switches and available PoE power.

Table 4.        Power supply models

^*Limited by port number and port rating (e.g. 24 PoE+ 30W ports = 720W)

^**Limited by design

^***Upgrade options for 715W and 1100W PSU are available

^* Limited by port number and port rating (e.g. 24 UPOE 60W ports = 1440W)

Stacking

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switch models are designed for stacking switches as a single virtual switch, enabling customers to have a single management plane and control plane for up to 448 access ports.

Figure 5.           

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series modular uplink models stack (C9300/C9300X SKUs) and fixed uplink models stack
(C9300L SKUs)

Table 5 lists the supported stacking options.

Table 5.        Supported stacking options

Mixed stacking between Catalyst 9300X and Catalyst 9300 models are supported at StackWise-480 speeds.

Mixed stacking between Catalyst 9300 and Catalyst 9300X and Catalyst 9300 higher scale models (C9300-24UB, C9300-24UXB, C9300-48UB) is not supported. You cannot stack fixed uplink models (C9300L SKUs) with modular uplink models (C9300 SKUs) or other Catalyst switches, e.g. Cisco Catalyst 3850 and 3650 Series. Any combination of Catalyst 9300 models can form a stack. Separately, any combination of Catalyst 9300L models can form a stack.

Catalyst 9300 higher scale SKUs (C9300-24UB, C9300-24UXB, C9300-48UB) need to be stacked with other higher scale models.

StackWise cables that are available to configure stacking with Catalyst 9300 Series modular uplink models (C9300X and C9300 SKUs) come in lengths of 0.5m, 1m and 3m.

The optional StackWise-320 kit for Catalyst 9300 Series fixed uplink models (C9300L and 9300LM SKUs) consists of two stack adapters and a stacking cable. The default stacking cable is 0.5 m, but options of 1m and 3m are also available. Table 6 lists the stacking accessories.

Table 6.        Stacking accessories

Figure 6.           

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series fixed uplink models with optional stack kit

Fan

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series switches also come with three field-replaceable fans and support (N+1) redundancy. Table 7 lists the fan module part number.

Table 7.        Fan modules

Performance and scalability

Performance and scalability metrics for the Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series are provided in Table 8.

Performance specifications

Table 8.        Performance specifications

Bandwidth specifications

Table 9.        Bandwidth specifications

All models are at wire-speed nonblocking performance for both IPv4 and IPv6. The forwarding rates in the table above are measured with 64 byte IPv4 packet sizes.