The Cisco Nexus^® 7000 F3-Series 12-Port 40 Gigabit Ethernet Module (referred to as the Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module in this document) offers outstanding feature flexibility and wire-rate performance on each port. The module enables the deployment of high-density, low-latency, scalable data center architecture.

Powering Cisco’s Unified Fabric Architecture

The Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches are the foundation of the Cisco Unified Fabric solution. Designed to meet the requirements of mission-critical data centers, these switches deliver exceptional availability, outstanding scalability, and the proven and comprehensive Cisco NX-OS Software data center switching feature set.

The first in the next generation of data center switching platforms, the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series provides integrated resilience combined with features optimized specifically for availability, reliability, scalability, and ease of management. The Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches’ fabric architecture scales beyond 17 terabits per second (Tbps) and is designed to support high-density 10 Gigabit, 40 Gigabit Ethernet, and 100 Gigabit Ethernet deployments. Up to 768 native 10-Gbps ports, 192 40-Gbps ports, and 96 100-Gbps ports can be supported in a single Cisco Nexus 7000 Series chassis.

The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module (Figure 1) is a low-latency, high-performance, high-density 40 Gigabit Ethernet module. It is operationally consistent with the Cisco Nexus 7700 F3-Series modules and shares a common system architecture and the same application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) technology. Up to 192 wire-rate 40 Gigabit Ethernet ports are supported in a single Cisco Nexus 7000 18-Slot Switch chassis (Table 1).

Figure 1.      Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series Module

Table 1.       Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches 40 Gigabit Ethernet Maximum Port Density

The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module is based on the Cisco Nexus F3-Series switch-on-chip (SoC) ASIC. This type of design increases performance while lowering the power and cooling requirements of the module. The Cisco Nexus F3-Series SoC is an innovative Cisco-designed ASIC powered by a flexible packet engine, which makes it excellent for building the network infrastructure for public and private cloud environments. The Cisco Nexus F3-Series engine can support all the foundational networking protocols needed to build Layer 2 and Layer 3 networks, and it also supports highly virtualized environments with virtual overlay networking, hardware support for Cisco Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN), and Locator/ID Separation Protocol (LISP) technology. Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series hardware enables customers to transparently interconnect their data centers with protocols such as Overlay Transport Virtualization (OTV) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS).

The module delivers 720 million packets per second (mpps) of distributed Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding and up to 480 Gbps of data throughput. A Cisco Nexus 7000 18-Slot Switch fully populated with the Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module can deliver up to 11.5 bpps and 15.4 Tbps of switching performance.

Features and Benefits

Note:    N7K-SUP2 or N7K-SUP2E is required to support F3-series modules in the chassis.

The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module integrates a broad set of data center switching technologies, including industry standards and Cisco’s own innovations. It combines the benefits of classical fabric interface line cards with the advanced routing features of edge interface modules. With this integration, the module provides exceptional investment protection for organizations consolidating data center environments while migrating to dense multiservice 40 Gigabit Ethernet networks.

• The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module is powered by the proven and comprehensive Cisco NX-OS feature set. This extremely comprehensive set of Layer 2 and Layer 3 functions makes this module excellent for data center networks, in which density, performance, and continuous system operation are critical.
• The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module is a critical enabler of Cisco FabricPath. With Cisco FabricPath, organizations can build resilient, flexible, and if needed, massively scalable Layer 2 networks. Cisco FabricPath protects enterprises’ investments by allowing existing spanning-tree-based deployments to be connected to a Cisco FabricPath network.
• The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module can be used in conjunction with the Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders (FEX). The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders are designed to simplify data center architecture and operations by dramatically reducing the number of points of management.
• The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module supports port breakout. Each of the 12 physical ports on the module can be configured as 4 logical and independent 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports. This breakout mode can be configured at any time on any port independently from configuration of other ports, and without the need to reload the module. Copper or fiber breakout assemblies are required to enable the physical separation of 10-Gigabit channels.
• The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module delivers integrated Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), greatly simplifying the network infrastructure and reducing costs by enabling the deployment of unified data center fabrics to consolidate data center traffic onto a single, general-purpose, high-performance, highly available network. With the Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module, FCoE can be deployed in director-class modular platforms for the access layer and core of converged networks.
• The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module provides support for wire-rate VXLAN, offering the architectural flexibility needed to expand cloud deployments with repeatable pods in different Layer 2 domains. VXLAN can also enable migration of virtual machines between servers across Layer 3 networks.
• The support of advanced data center interconnect (DCI) protocols such as Cisco OTV and VPLS makes the module excellent for helping customers simplify the extension of applications across geographically dispersed data center sites.
• The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module supports high-performance MPLS for 40 Gigabit Ethernet data center deployments.
• Support for Cisco LISP allows enterprises and service providers to simplify multi-homed routing, and it facilitates scalable any-to-any WAN connectivity while supporting data center virtual machine mobility.
• The virtual device context (VDC) feature helps enable the virtualization of a single physical device in one or more logical devices. Each provisioned logical device is configured and managed as if it were a separate physical device.
• The Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module offers exceptional security, with integrated hardware support for:

◦     Configurable Control-Plane Policing (CoPP), which protects the supervisor CPU from excessive traffic

◦     Access control list (ACL) counters and logging capability to provide deeper packet visibility

◦     Layer 2 to Layer 4 ACL for both IPv4 and IPv6 traffic

◦     Cisco TrustSec^® technology and ACL processing for security group tags (SGTs)

Note:    This document describes capabilities of the Cisco Nexus F3-Series modular hardware. Please consult your Cisco representative to confirm the appropriate Cisco NX-OS Software release required to enable these features.

Product Specifications

Table 2 lists product specifications for the Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series module. Table 3 lists specifications for Cisco transceivers installed in the module’s Quad Small Form-Factor Pluggable Plus (QSFP+) ports to enable connectivity over the physical medium. Refer to the release notes for up-to-date software version information to see which optics and copper assemblies are supported. Complete information about supported transceivers can be found at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/modules/ps5455/prod_models_home.html.

Table 2.       Product Specifications

Table 3.       40 Gigabit Ethernet Interface Distances and Options

¹ Minimum cabling distance of 0.5m for -SR4 and -CSR4 modules, and 2m for -LR4 modules, according to the IEEE 802.3 standard

² Considered an engineered link with a maximum of 1 dB allocated to connectors and splice loss

³ Specified at transmission wavelength

⁴ Links longer than 30 km for the same link power budget are considered engineered links as per IEEE 802.3 Table 87-6. Depending on the link architecture, attenuation may be required to help ensure operation

Note:    Please refer to the Cisco 40GBASE QSFP Modules Data Sheet (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/interfaces-modules/transceiver-modules/data_sheet_c78-660083.html) for further details about these QSFP Modules.

Note:    This data sheet describes the hardware capabilities of the Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series 12-Port module. Please refer to the Cisco NX-OS Software release notes (http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/switches/nexus-7000-series-switches/products-release-notes-list.html) or consult your Cisco representative to confirm the current or future NX-OS release required for any of these features.

Ordering Information

To place an order, visit the Cisco Ordering homepage. To download software, visit the Cisco Software Center. Table 4 provides ordering information.

Table 4.       Ordering Information

 Nexus 7000 F3 + FEX Bundle (1xF312,4x2248PQ,32xFET-40G) # N7K-F312-4N2248-P1