N5K-C5648Q

Product Overview

The increasing number of applications requiring greater bandwidth and the availability of less expensive 10-Gbps servers are fueling a growing demand for dense 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches. At the same time, data center architecture is evolving in response to new demands on the IT infrastructure. Application workloads are being deployed across a mix of virtualized and physical server and storage infrastructure, requiring a network infrastructure that provides consistent connectivity, security, and visibility across a range of bare-metal, virtualized, and cloud computing environments.

The Cisco Nexus^® 5600 platform Gigabit Ethernet switches are the third generation of the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches: the leading data center server access switches. The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform, the successor to the widely adopted Cisco Nexus 5500 platform, maintains all the existing Cisco Nexus 5500 platform features, including LAN and SAN convergence (unified ports and Fibre Channel over Ethernet [FCoE]), fabric extenders, and Cisco^® FabricPath. In addition, the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform offers integrated line-rate Layer 2 and 3 capabilities with true 40 Gigabit Ethernet support, Cisco’s programmable fabric innovation, Network Virtualization Using Generic Routing Encapsulation (NVGRE), Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) bridging and routing capabilities, excellent network programmability and visibility, large buffer capacity, and significantly greater scale and performance for highly virtualized, automated, and cloud environments.

The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches include 1-rack-unit (1RU), 2RU, and 4RU configurations for a flexible, agile, and energy-efficient design. The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform complements existing Cisco Nexus switches and is an important component of the Cisco Unified Data Center architecture. The platform offers 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE with integrated Layer 2 and 3 features at wire speed. It also offers low latency: approximately 1 microsecond for any packet size. With a choice of port-side intake and fan-side intake airflow options to align with cold-aisle and hot-aisle placement within the data center, the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches are designed for a broad range of traditional data center and large-scale virtualized cloud deployments.

The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform with the Cisco NX-OS Software operating system provides customers with features and capabilities that are widely deployed in data centers around the world. NX-OS is a purpose-built data center operating system designed for performance, resiliency, scalability, manageability, and programmability. It meets Ethernet and storage networking requirements, providing a robust and comprehensive feature set that can meet the demanding requirements of virtualization and automation in present and future data centers.

The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform is designed for top-of-rack (ToR) and middle-of-row (MoR) deployment in data centers that support enterprise applications, service provider hosting, and cloud computing environments. The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform delivers dense 40 Gigabit Ethernet switching that is well suited for cloud, big data, and virtualized environments.

Models and Configurations

The Cisco 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches come in multiple configurations:

●   Cisco Nexus 5624Q Switch: The Cisco Nexus 5624Q (Figure 1) is a 1RU switch that supports 1.92 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth across 12 fixed 40-Gbps Enhanced Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable (QSFP+) ports and 12 additional 40-Gbps QSFP+ ports supported through an expansion module. The Cisco Nexus 5624Q can also support up to ninety-six 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports with the use of breakout cables.

Figure 1.      Cisco Nexus 5624Q Switch (Port-Side View)

The Cisco Nexus 5624Q offers a hot-swappable generic expansion module (GEM) for an additional twelve 40 Gigabit Ethernet ports (Figure 2).

Figure 2.      Cisco Nexus 5624Q and 5648Q Generic Expansion Module

The Cisco Nexus 5624Q offers three fan modules for 2+1 redundancy and two power supplies for 1+1 redundancy (Figure 3), and supports both port-side intake and fan-side intake airflow options for flexible mounting.

Figure 3.      Cisco Nexus 5624Q Switch (Fan-Side View)

●   Cisco Nexus 5648Q Switch: The Cisco Nexus 5648Q (Figure 4) is a 2RU switch that supports 3.84 Tbps of bandwidth across 24 fixed 40-Gbps QSFP+ ports and 24 additional 40-Gbps QSFP+ ports with the use of two expansion modules. The Cisco Nexus 5648Q can also support up to 192 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports with the use of breakout cables.

Figure 4.      Cisco Nexus 5648Q Switch (Port-Side View)

The Cisco Nexus 5648Q with two expansion slots offers support for an additional twenty-four 40 Gigabit Ethernet ports using a hot-swappable GEM, as shown in Figure 2. The Cisco Nexus 5624Q and 5648Q share the same expansion module.

The Cisco Nexus 5648Q offers three fan modules for 2+1 redundancy and four power supplies for 2+2 redundancy (Figure 5), and supports both port-side intake and fan-side intake airflow options for flexible mounting.

Figure 5.      Cisco Nexus 5648Q Switch (Fan-Side View)

Using Cisco Fabric Extender Technology and cost-effective optics that allow the use of existing 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber (a pair of multimode fiber strands), the Cisco Nexus 5624Q and 5648Q offer an optimal form factor for organizations upgrading their infrastructure from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps. Please see the Cisco 40 Gigabit Modules QSFP data sheet for more details.

●   Cisco Nexus 5696Q Switch: The Cisco Nexus 5696Q (Figure 6) is a 4RU 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switch with the industry’s highest port density. Its compact, energy-efficient form factor offers eight line-card expansion-module (LEM) slots to support 40 Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE, and 8/4/2-Gbps Fibre Channel, making it the most versatile switch in the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform. The Cisco Nexus 5696Q supports 7.68 Tbps of bandwidth across 96 ports of 40 Gbps when fully loaded.

Figure 6.      Cisco Nexus 5696Q Switch with Eight 12-Port 40-Gbps Expansion Modules (Port-Side View)

Cisco Nexus 5696Q expansion modules offer multiple interface options with the chassis base. The Cisco Nexus 5696Q supports a 40 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet LEM with QSFP+ optics. Each 40 Gigabit Ethernet expansion module (Figure 7) provides 12 ports of 40 Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE ports using a QSFP interface, or 48 ports of 10 Gbps using breakout cables. With all eight expansion modules installed, the Cisco Nexus 5696Q delivers 96 ports of QSFP or 384 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (SFP+) using breakout cables. All expansion modules are hot swappable.

Figure 7.      12-Port 40-Gbps Line-Card Expansion Module

The Cisco Nexus 5696Q also offers a unified expansion module (Figure 8). that supports 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+, Fibre Channel at 8/4/2 Gbps, and 10-Gbps FCoE. The unified port LEM offers twenty 10-Gbps SFP+ ports with support for up to 160 ports in a fully loaded system.

Figure 8.      20-Port 10-Gbps Unified Port Line-Card Expansion Module

The Cisco Nexus 5696Q also supports a 100 Gigabit Ethernet expansion module (Figure 9) that supports 100 Gigabit Ethernet with CXP optics. The 100 Gigabit Ethernet LEM offers four 100-Gbps CXP ports with support for up to 32 ports in a fully loaded system. The 100-Gbps LEM module does not support breakout cables.

Figure 9.      4-Port 100-Gbps Line-Card Expansion Module

The Cisco Nexus 5696Q offers four fan modules for 2+2 redundancy and six power supplies for 3+3 redundancy (Figure 10), and supports both port-side intake and fan-side intake airflow options for flexible mounting.

Power-supply grid redundancy is not supported when the Cisco Nexus 5696Q is populated with more than four of the 100-Gbps LEM.

Figure 10.    Cisco Nexus 5696Q Switch (Fan-Side View)

Integrated Layer 2 and 3 features enhance performance to deliver low-latency wire speed of approximately 1 microsecond for any packet size. The Cisco Nexus 5696Q maintains wire-speed performance for a fully loaded system for Ethernet and FCoE traffic. The Cisco Nexus 5696Q also supports 1-Gbps connectivity using adapters that convert QSFP to SFP or SFP+, offering additional flexibility.

The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches support VXLAN in bridging and routing modes on all ports at line rate, enabling the migration of virtual machines between servers across Layer 3 networks.

With the Cisco Nexus 5600 40-Gbps platform, organizations can quickly and easily upgrade existing data centers through advanced Cisco bidirectional (BiDi) optics, which enable the use of existing 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber (a pair of multimode fiber strands) to carry 40 Gigabit Ethernet to the aggregation layer or to the spine (in a leaf-and-spine configuration) without requiring any change to the existing cabling infrastructure. Additionally, the platform can be deployed in middle-of-row MoR or end-of-row (EoR) configurations to meet the 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity requirements of multiple racks or pods.

Used with Cisco Nexus 2200 and 2300 platform fabric extenders, the switches can support even more servers in a collapsed access- and aggregation-layer design that supports 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity across multiple racks.

Features and Benefits

The following are some of the primary features of the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches:

●   Optimization for virtualization and cloud deployments: Today, high-performance servers deployed in the cloud can support more virtual machines and workloads than ever before. But deploying new servers on demand puts additional strain on the network fabric. The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches address this challenge by providing scalability and performance, making the platform excellent for meeting current and future needs.

●   Density and resilience: Built for today’s data centers, the switches are designed just like the servers they support. Ports and power connections are at the rear, close to server ports, helping keep cable lengths as short as possible and delivering to rack servers benefits traditionally offered only on blade servers. Hot-swappable power and fan modules can be accessed from the front panel, where status lights offer an at-a-glance view of switch operation. Front-to-back or back-to-front cooling is consistent with server designs, supporting efficient data center hot- and cold-aisle designs. Serviceability is enhanced with all customer-replaceable units accessible from the front panel.

●   Energy efficiency: The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches help data centers operate within their space, power, and cooling parameters while reducing their carbon footprints. The switch power supplies are also capable of maintaining 90 percent efficiency at load conditions as low as 25 percent utilization. This capability allows the switches to make efficient use of power while still being appropriately sized to support the conditions of a full system load.

●   Low latency: Cut-through switching enables these switches to support approximately 1 microsecond of port-to-port latency for any packet size with features enabled.

●   Intelligent Cisco Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) and Encapsulated SPAN (ERSPAN): SPAN and ERSPAN can be used for troubleshooting and robust monitoring of traffic. The SPAN and ERSPAN capabilities are nondisruptive, with only extra bandwidth capacity used for SPAN and ERSPAN traffic. Enhancements include more efficient allocation of bandwidth to SPAN and ERSPAN traffic whereby any fabric bandwidth not used for data traffic can be allocated to SPAN or ERSPAN traffic. The switch can support up to 31 line-rate SPAN and ERSPAN sessions.

●   Flexible buffer management: The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches support a 25-MB packet buffer shared by every 3 ports of 40 Gigabit Ethernet or every 12 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Each 100G port has a dedicated 25-MB packet buffer. The flexible buffer management capability allows dynamic tuning of the sizes of the shared and dedicated buffers in the event of congestion.

●   Multicast enhancements: Line-rate Layer 2 and 3 multicast throughput for all frame sizes is also supported on these switches. They offer optimized multicast replication through the fabric and at the egress point. Support is provided for 32,000 multicast routes and for Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) snooping tables in hardware. Multicast enhancements include flow-based hashing for multicast traffic over a port channel and enhanced Bidirectional Protocol-Independent Multicast (Bidir-PIM) support. The switch also supports IP-based forwarding for IGMP snooping.

For a complete list of the latest software features supported on the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform, refer to the product bulletin available at
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/nexus-5000-series-switches/bulletin-c25-735319.html.

Applications

The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches support a number of application scenarios, making the platform a versatile data center option.

Cisco Fabric Extender Architecture: High-Density Fabric Extender Aggregator

FEX Technology enables you to build a single, modular fabric that extends from Cisco Nexus switches, to Cisco Unified Computing System^™ (Cisco UCS^®) servers, to adapters (Cisco Adapter FEX), and to virtual machines (Cisco Data Center Virtual Machine FEX [VM-FEX]). FEX Technology is based on the emerging standard IEEE 802.1BR. Designing the network using FEX Technology provides flexibility, reduced cabling infrastructure, and a single point of management, helping customers scale their networks. When Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches are part of a fabric that includes Cisco Nexus 2200 or 2300 platform fabric extenders, use these fabric extenders in single- or dual-connected mode using enhanced virtual port channel (vPC+) technology to two upstream Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches. Servers or end hosts can connect to single or dual Cisco Nexus 2200 and 2300 platform fabric extenders using network interface card (NIC) teaming when the parent Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switch has vPC+ enabled.

Following are some common deployment options using the Cisco Nexus 2200 and 2300 platform fabric extenders and Cisco Nexus 5600 platform switches:

●   Rack servers with 100 Megabit Ethernet, 1 Gigabit Ethernet, or 10 Gigabit Ethernet NICs; the fabric extender can be physically located at the top of the rack, and the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches can reside in the middle or at the end of the row, or the fabric extender and the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform switch can both reside in the middle or at the end of the row

●   Rack servers with 10 Megabit Ethernet NICs full duplex mode connected using the Cisco Nexus 2248TP-E Fabric Extender in conjunction with the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform

●   Mixed 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet environments in which rack servers are running at either speed in the same rack or in adjacent racks

●   10 Gigabit Ethernet and FCoE deployments using servers with converged network adapters (CNAs) for unified fabric environments with the Cisco Nexus 2232PP 10GE and Cisco Nexus 2232TM-E 10GE Fabric Extenders

●   1/10GBASE-T server connectivity with ease of migration from 1 to 10GBASE-T and effective reuse of structured cabling

●   1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet blade servers with pass-through blades

●   Low-latency, high-performance computing environments

●   Virtualized access

In addition to these options, the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform provides unique value as a high-density fabric extender aggregation platform. For example, the switches can be used in conjunction with the Cisco Nexus 2348UPQ, 2348TQ, 2332TQ, 2248PQ, 2232PP, 2248TP-E, 2232TM-E, 2232TM, 2248TP and 2224TP Fabric Extenders as a high-density switching system, consolidating 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections in a single management plane. In addition, a variety of blade fabric extender options can be aggregated into Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches using 10 Gigabit Ethernet, providing a single point of management for blade server deployments.

Table 1 lists the fabric extenders that are supported by the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches. Please refer to the Cisco Nexus 2200 and 2300 platform data sheets and release notes for more information about the products and the minimum software releases for support.

Table 1.       Supported Fabric Extenders

Large-Scale Fabric (Layer 2 and 3): Leaf-and-Spine Architecture

Data center designs are evolving, with customers seeking to build large-scale nonblocking fabrics to accommodate different applications, creating patterns of heavy east-west and north-south traffic. The Cisco 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches are well suited as leaf or spine nodes in a Layer 2 or 3 fabric design. Leaf-and-spine designs using high-density and low-latency switches lead to flatter network architecture, allowing connections that scale from hundreds to more than 10,000 servers with high bidirectional bandwidth and helping ensure low-latency fabric with a low hop count. The spine switches create a nonblocking, low-latency fabric, forwarding packets between leaf switches. The leaf switches provide connectivity to servers. Use of a highly meshed architecture helps ensure the highest possible network availability with little impact on customer traffic in the event of a failure. The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches can be deployed as Layer 2 or 3 spine or leaf switches, providing a high degree of design flexibility (Figure 11).

Figure 11.    Leaf-and-Spine Architecture

Multihop FCoE

Cisco Unified Fabric combines data center and storage networks to deliver a single high-performance, highly available, and scalable network. With the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches, Cisco can support end-to-end data center convergence, from the server to storage, by delivering multihop FCoE capability in the data center. The FCoE capability complements the existing FCoE function on the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches. With this broad selection of standards-based FCoE switches, Cisco provides unified fabric support to both the access and core network layers, supporting all storage traffic (FCoE, Small Computer System Interface over IP [iSCSI], and network-attached storage [NAS]) over a simplified infrastructure based on lossless 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet (Figure 12).

Figure 12.    Multihop FCoE Design

High-Performance Computing

The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches can be deployed as high-density Small Form-Factor (SFF) access-layer switches to consolidate a large number of 10 Gigabit Ethernet servers in deployments that call for only a small number of hops from the server to the upstream network to reduce latency. They have a high density of 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports per rack unit, approximately 1 microsecond of latency port to port for any packet size, integrated line-rate Layer 2 and 3 features, scalability, and integrated data analytics with programmability. They address the needs of high-performance computing (HPC) and high-frequency trading (HFT) environments, for which InfiniBand solutions lack management visibility and high performance of bulk data transfers across traditional applications (Figure 13).

Figure 13.    High-Performance Computing Design

The capability to function in all these capacities helps protect investments in the data center with a deployment model in which additional features can be enabled, as they are needed.

Cisco NX-OS Software Overview

The software on the Cisco Nexus 5600 switches offers flexibility and a comprehensive feature set while remaining consistent with Cisco Nexus access switches. Default system software has a comprehensive Layer 2 security and management feature set and base-level Layer 3 feature set. For advanced Layer 3 IP Unicast and IP Multicast routing functions, you must install additional licenses. Table 2 lists the software packaging and licensing available to enable various advanced features.

Table 2.       Software Packaging and Licensing for Cisco Nexus 5600 Platform 40-Gbps Switches

For a complete list of all the features and benefits of NX-OS, please see https://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps9494/ps9372/data_sheet_c78-652063.html.

Cisco ONE Software

Licenses can be purchased individually for each feature as shown in Table 2 or through Cisco ONE™ Software for Data Center Networking which is available for the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform.

Cisco ONE Software provides a new way for customers to purchase, consume, and use our infrastructure software. It offers a simplified consumption model focused on common customer scenarios for the data center, WAN, and LAN.

Cisco ONE Software and services provide customers with four main benefits:

●   Software suites that address typical customer use scenarios at an attractive price

●   Investment protection of software purchases through software services-enabled license portability

●   Access to ongoing innovation and new technology with Cisco Software Support Service (SWSS)

●   Flexible licensing models to smoothly distribute the customer's software spending over time

For ordering information for Cisco ONE Software for the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform switches, please click here.

Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager

Cisco Prime DCNM provides LAN and SAN management capabilities for the Cisco Nexus and Cisco MDS 9500 Families. Cisco Prime DCNM provides a GUI that reduces OpEx compared to traditional command-line interface (CLI) methods and allows efficient operation control, monitoring, provisioning, and troubleshooting for your NX-OS devices. The main features include the following:

●   Unified fabric visibility and topology display with VMware vSphere integration shows the connectivity from the virtual machine to the VMware ESX host and to the switch and the storage array.

●   Event aggregation and filtering helps you quickly find the information you need and identify network problems.

●   Deployment wizards and user-modifiable templates help you implement best practices.

●   Role-based access control (RBAC) helps secure devices and provide appropriate delegation.

●   Integrated domain dashboards, health monitoring, reporting, change tracking, and user auditing provides comprehensive management capabilities.

●   Trend monitoring of ports and traffic allow you to optimize your existing resources and anticipate new resource requirements.

Specifications

Table 3 lists the specifications for the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform switches. Please check software release notes at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus5600/sw/release/notes/7x/Nexus5600_Release_Notes_7x.html for a complete list of features supported.

Table 3.       Product Specifications

Power Supply

Table 4 lists the power supply properties of the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform.

Table 4.       Power Supply Properties

Environment

Table 5 lists the environment properties of the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform.

Table 5.       Environment Properties

For the latest software release information and recommendations, please see the product bulletin at https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/switches/nexus-5000-series-switches/index.html.

Regulatory Standards Compliance

Table 6 summarizes regulatory standards compliance for the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform.

Table 6.       Regulatory Standards Compliance: Safety and EMC

Cisco Nexus 5600 Platform Transceiver and Cabling Options

The Cisco Nexus 5600 platform supports a wide variety of 1, 10, and 40 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity options. Table 7 lists the 40 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP+ transceivers supported, Table 8 lists the transceivers supported for 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Fiber Channel connectivity, and Table 9 lists the transceiver supported for 100 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity.

Table 7.       Cisco Nexus 5600 Platform 40-Gbps Switches Transceiver Support Matrix

Table 8.       Cisco Nexus 5600 Platform 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP and SFP+ Transceiver Support Matrix

Table 9.       Cisco Nexus 5600 Platform 100 Gigabit Ethernet CXP Transceiver Support Matrix

The platform supports a Twinax copper cabling solution that connects to standard QSFP connectors for in-rack use, and optical cabling for longer cable runs (Table 10).

For in-rack or adjacent-rack cabling, the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform supports QSFP+ direct-attach 40 Gigabit Ethernet copper cables, a solution that integrates transceivers with Twinax cables into an energy-efficient, low-cost, and low-latency solution. QSFP+ direct-attach 40 Gigabit Twinax copper cables use only 1.5W of power per transceiver and introduce approximately 0.1 microsecond of latency per link.

An alternative to copper cables is fiber, through active optical cables that integrate the transceivers with multimode fiber.

For longer cable runs, the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform supports multimode, short-reach optical QSFP+ transceivers. These optical transceivers use approximately 1.5W per transceiver and have a latency of approximately 0.1 microsecond.

Table 10.     Cisco Nexus 5600 Platform Cabling Support Matrix

¹ Connector loss budget for OM3 fiber is 1.5 dB.² 125m over OM4 fiber is with an engineered link with 1-dB budget for connector loss.³ 150m over OM4+ fiber is an engineered link with 1-dB budget for connector loss. One of the recommended fibers for OM4+ is Panduit Signature Core Fiber. Please refer to the following link for additional information: https://www.panduit.com/en/signature-core.

Ordering Information

Table 11 presents ordering information for the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform 40-Gbps switches. Note that you can order the Cisco Nexus 2200 and 2300 platform fabric extenders either separately or with the Cisco Nexus 5600 platform.

Table 11.     Ordering Information