Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches Data Sheet

Built for security, IoT, mobility, and cloud

The Cisco^® Catalyst^® 9300 Series switches are Cisco’s lead stackable enterprise switching platform built for security, IoT, mobility, and cloud. They are the next generation of the industry’s most widely deployed switching platform. Catalyst 9300 Series switches form the foundational building block for Software-Defined Access (SD-Access), Cisco’s lead enterprise architecture. At up to 480 Gbps, they are the industry’s highest-density stacking bandwidth solution with the most flexible uplink architecture. The Catalyst 9300 Series is the first optimized platform for high-density Wi-Fi 6 and 802.11ac Wave2. It sets new maximums for network scale. These switches are also ready for the future, with an x86 CPU architecture and more memory, enabling them to host containers and run third-party applications and scripts natively within the switch.

The Catalyst 9300 Series is designed for Cisco StackWise^® technology, providing flexible deployment with support for nonstop forwarding with Stateful Switchover (NSF/SSO), for the most resilient architecture in a stackable (sub-50-ms) solution. The highly resilient and efficient power architecture features Cisco StackPower^®, which delivers high-density Cisco Universal Power over Ethernet (Cisco UPOE^®) and Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+) ports. The switches are based on the Cisco Unified Access^™ Data Plane 2.0 (UADP) 2.0 architecture which not only protects your investment but also allows a larger scale and higher throughput. A modern operating system, Cisco IOS^® XE with programmability offers advanced security capabilities and Internet of Things (IoT) convergence.

The Foundation of Software-Defined access

Advanced persistent security threats. The exponential growth of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Mobility everywhere. Cloud adoption. All of these 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 the rollout of business services.

The Cisco Digital Network Architecture (Cisco DNA) with Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) is the network fabric that powers business. It 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

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 DNA 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.

Product overview: Features

Product highlights

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

●     Cisco UADP 2.0 Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) with programmable pipeline and microengine capabilities, along with template-based, configurable allocation of Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding, Access Control Lists (ACLs), and Quality of Service (QoS) entries

●     x86 CPU complex with 8-GB memory, and 16 GB of flash and external USB 3.0 SSD pluggable storage slot (delivering 120GB of storage with an option SSD drive) to host containers

●     USB 2.0 slot to load system images and set configurations

●     Up to 480 Gbps of local stackable switching bandwidth

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

●     Flexible and dense uplink offerings with 1G, Multigigabit, 10G, 25G, and 40G in the form of fixed or modular uplinks

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

●     Flexible downlink options with 1G Copper and Fiber as well as Multigigabit links

●     Leading PoE capabilities with up to 384 ports of PoE per stack, 60W Cisco UPOE, and PoE+

●     Intelligent Power Management with Cisco StackPower technology, providing power stacking among members for power redundancy

●     Line-rate, hardware-based Flexible NetFlow (FNF), delivering flow collection of up to 64,000 flows

●     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

●     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

●     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

●     SD-Access Embedded Wireless: The Cisco Catalyst 9800 embedded Wireless Controller Software package can be installed on Cisco Catalyst 9300 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 9300 Series switch can support up to 200 APs and 4000 Clients (C9300L supports 50 APs / 4000 Clients). A maximum two wireless controllers can be enabled per site on two different Catalyst 9300 Series switches which will increase to scale up to 400 APs and 8000 Wireless Clients (C9300L: 100 APs / 8000 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 9300 Series switches functioning as Co-Located Border and Control Plane

◦     C9800 Wireless Software Package can be enabled on Catalyst 9300 Series switches functioning as Fabric in a Box

●     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

Overview