Nexus 9332C Fex-Support

[Ronny Lau]

Hi,

a customer was asking me if the 9332c-switch supports fexes. well i was not able to find any information about the support on cisco's website, only the old 9332pq switches are mentioned everywere.

addtionally: can someone explain the difference between the 9332c and the 9332pq switches?

Thanks alot for all informations.

Regards

Ronny

[David Castro F. · Accepted solution]

Hello Ronny,

Cisco has not documented the actual 9332C device in the FEX support matrx, but you can find that this device 9332C and the 9336C are categorized together and have the specs: (9336C upgraded HW)

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-9000-series-switches/datasheet-c78-739886.html

There are limitations to take into account:

Supported FEX Modules

Full FEX module support has been added for the following switches:

■        N9K-C9336C-FX2

■        N9K-C93108TC-FX

■        N9K-C93180YC-FX

■        N9K-C93240YC-FX2

■For more information, see the Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switch FEX Support page.

■Note the following:

■        Cisco Nexus 9300 platform switches do not support FEXs on uplink modules (ALE).

■        Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 9.2(1), dual-homed FEX support is added to Cisco Nexus 93180YC-FX, and 93108TC-FX switches in addition to straight-through FEX support.

■        Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 9.2(1), straight-through FEX support is added to Cisco Nexus 93240YC-FX2 and 9336C-FX2 switches.

■        Active-Active FEX and straight-through FEX are not supported on the Cisco Nexus 9348GC-FXP switch.

■        For FEX HIF port channels, enable the STP port type edge using the spanning tree port type edge [trunk] command.

■        The Cisco Nexus 2248PQ, 2348TQ, and 2348UPQ FEXs support connections to the Cisco Nexus 9300 or 9500 platform switches by using supported breakout cables to connect a QSFP+ uplink on the FEX and an SFP+ link on the parent switch (4x10 G links).

■ Note: For Cisco Nexus 9500 platform switches, 4x10-Gb breakout for FEX connectivity is not supported.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus9000/sw/92x/release/notes/923_9000_nxos_rn.html

Additional Notes

• This form makes extensive use of tooltip popups. If popups are disabled in your browser, you will not have access to this information.

• A release number in the popup indicates the earliest release that supports this combination of switch and FEX.

• Unless noted otherwise, NX-OS mode FEX support includes both dual-homed and straight-through support. In ACI mode, dual-homed FEX is not supported.

  • Cisco 9300-FX series switches support both dual-homed and straight-through FEX beginning with NX-OS Release 9.2(1).
  • Cisco Nexus 9300 platform switches with -FX2 suffix support only straight-through FEX.

• In applications where both the parent switch and the FEX have SFP+ ports, native 10G is supported with a direct connection between SFP+ ports (no breakout required).

• In breakout applications, unless noted otherwise, the QSFP+ connector of the breakout cable attaches to the parent switch and the SFP+ connector(s) attaches to the FEX.

• Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I7(3), the Cisco Nexus N9K-C93180YC-FX supports straight-through FEX with N2K-C2232PP and N2K-C2248TP FEX models in NX-OS Mode. Dual-homed FEX is added in Cisco NX-OS Release 9.2(1). FCoE Over FEX is not supported with Nexus N9K-C93180YC-FX in NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I7(3).

• Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I7(1), the Cisco Nexus 2332TQ supports the Cisco Nexus 9300, 9300-EX, and 9500 platform switches as the parent switch (on all FEX supported platforms).

• Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I7(1), FEX support on breakout ports is added on platforms and ports that support FEX and are breakout capable.

• Beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I5(1), supported Cisco Nexus 9300 platform switches with -EX suffix support straight-through FEX. Dual-homed FEX is added in Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I5(2).

• The N9K-X9408PC-CFP2 line card does not support the Cisco Nexus 2300 platform FEXs.

• First generation Cisco Nexus 9300 platform switches do not support FEXs on uplink module ports (ALE - Application Leaf Engine). First generation switches are those that do not have a suffix (such -EX, -FX, or -FX2) in the model name.

• For FEX HIF port channels, we recommend that you enable STP port type edge using the spanning tree port type edge [trunk] command.

• The Cisco Nexus 2248PQ, 2348TQ, and 2348UPQ FEXes support connections to the Cisco Nexus 9300 or 9500 platform switches by using supported breakout cables to connect a QSFP+ uplink on the FEX and an SFP+ link on the parent switch (4x10 Gbps links).

  Note: For Cisco Nexus 9500 platform switches, 4x10 Gbps breakout for FEX connectivity is supported on N9K-X9432PQ, N9K-X9536PQ, and N9K-X9636PQ beginning with Cisco NX-OS Release 7.0(3)I7(1).

https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/Website/datacenter/fexmatrix/fexmatrix.html

So it could work but it is not officially supported as of now, below the differences that requested:

	Nexus 9332C	Cisco Nexus 9332PQ
Usage	ACI spine & NXOS(Leaf/spine), powered by Cloud Scale	ACI spine & NXOS(Leaf/spine), powered by Cloud Scale
Form factor	1 RU	1 RU
100 M/1 GE/10 GE copper ports	NA	NA
1/10 GE fiber ports	2	2
40 GE ports	32	32
50 GE ports	NA	NA
100 GE ports	32	NA
Latency (microseconds)	~1.3	1 to 2
MACsec & Cloudsec	Yes, on last 8 ports	NA
Buffer (MB)	40	25
Power supply (watts); 2 per switch	1100	1100
Typical power (watts)	296	296

Keep us posted, please rate all helpful posts,

Regards,

David Castro,

[cweinhold]

This advice is incorrect. The 9332C does not support FEX.

The Nexus 9332C and 9364C switches use chips intended to for spine switches (ACI spine or NX-OS EVPN spine).  To use them as a core or distribution or traditional NX-OS switch, you’ll find them barebones and they may fail to meet customer expectations. They have smaller tables and buffers, lack core features like NetFlow and intelligent buffering, and lack data center switching features like DCB/RoCE, FEX, and breakout cabling. 

For traditional, general-purpose NX-OS, I’d stick with a mainline EX, FX, or FX2 switch. The Nexus 9336C-FX2 has been especially popular for dense 100G.