Product Overview

The Cisco Nexus^® 3172PQ, 3172TQ, 3172TQ-32T, 3172PQ-XL, and 3172TQ-XL Switches are dense, high-performance, 10- and 40-Gbps Layer 2 and 3 switches that are members of the Cisco Nexus 3100 switch platform. All switches offer improved port density and scalability in compact one-rack-unit (1RU) form factors. The Cisco Nexus 3172 switches run the industry-leading Cisco^® NX-OS Software operating system, which helps ensure continuous availability and sets the standard for mission-critical data center environments. They are well suited for data centers that require cost-effective, power-efficient line-rate Layer 2 and 3 top-of-rack (ToR) switches. These switches also support forward and reverse airflow (port-side exhaust and port-side intake) schemes with AC and DC power inputs.

Five Cisco Nexus 3172 switches are available:

●   The Cisco Nexus 3172PQ (Figure 1) is a 10-Gbps Enhanced Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP+)–based ToR switch with 48 SFP+ ports and 6 Quad SFP+ (QSFP+) ports. Each SFP+ port can operate in 100-Mbps, 1‑Gbps, or 10-Gbps mode, and each QSFP+ port can operate in native 40-Gbps or 4 x 10-Gbps mode. This switch is a true phy-less switch that is optimized for low latency and low power consumption.

●   The Cisco Nexus 3172TQ (Figure 2) is a 10GBASE-T switch with 48 10GBASE-T ports and 6 QSFP+ ports. This switch is well suited for customers who want to reuse existing copper cabling while migrating from 1-Gbps to 10-Gbps servers.

●    The Cisco Nexus 3172TQ-32T (Figure 2): This switch is the Cisco Nexus 3172TQ with 32 10GBASE-T ports and 6 QSFP+ ports enabled. The ports are enabled through software licensing. This switch provides a cost-effective solution for customers who require up to 32 10GBASE-T ports per rack. This switch comes with a 32-10GBASE-T port license preinstalled. To enable the remaining 16 10GBASE-T ports, the customer installs the 16-port upgrade license.

●   The Cisco Nexus 3172PQ-XL (Figure 3) and Cisco Nexus 3172TQ-XL (Figure 4) are minor hardware revisions of the Cisco Nexus 3172PQ and 3172TQ, respectively. Enhancements include an additional 4 GB of memory (for a total of 8 GB). The additional memory allows users to perform object-model programming. The Cisco Nexus 3172PQ-XL and 3172TQ-XL also have 2.5-GHz CPUs.

Main Benefits

The Cisco Nexus 3172 switches provide the following main benefits:

●   Wire-rate Layer 2 and 3 switching on all 72 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports

◦     The Cisco Nexus 3172 switches provide Layer 2 and 3 switching of up to 1.4 terabits per second (Tbps) and up to 1 billion packets per second (bpps) in a compact 1RU form factor.

●   High availability

◦     Virtual port-channel (vPC) technology provides Layer 2 multipathing through the elimination of Spanning Tree Protocol. It also enables fully utilized bisectional bandwidth and simplified Layer 2 logical topologies without the need to change the existing management and deployment models.

◦     The 64-way equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routing enables the use of Layer 3 fat-tree designs and allows organizations to prevent network bottlenecks, increase resiliency, and add capacity with little network disruption.

◦     Advanced reboot capabilities are included through In Service Software Upgrade (ISSU) and Fast Reboot capabilities.

◦     Power-supply units (PSUs) and fans are hot swappable.

●   High performance

◦     The Cisco Nexus 3172 switches deliver ultra-low nominal latency, which allows customers to implement high‑performance infrastructure for high-frequency trading (HFT) workloads.

●   Purpose-built on the NX-OS operating system with comprehensive, proven innovations

◦     Power-on auto provisioning (POAP) enables touchless bootup and configuration of the switch, drastically reducing provisioning time.

◦     Cisco Embedded Event Manager (EEM) and Python scripting enable automation and remote operations in the data center.

◦     Advanced buffer monitoring reports real-time buffer use per port and per queue, which allows organizations to monitor traffic bursts and application traffic patterns.

◦     Ethanalyzer is a built-in packet analyzer for monitoring and troubleshooting control-plane traffic and is based on the popular Wireshark open-source network protocol analyzer.

◦     Precision Time Protocol (PTP; IEEE 1588) provides accurate clock synchronization and improved data correlation with network captures and system events.

◦     Complete Layer 3 unicast and multicast routing protocol suites are supported, including Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP), Routing Information Protocol Version 2 (RIPv2), Protocol-Independent Multicast sparse mode (PIM-SM), Source-Specific Multicast (SSM), and Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP).

●   Network traffic monitoring with Cisco Nexus Data Broker

◦     Build simple, scalable and cost-effective network test access point (TAP) or Cisco Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) aggregation for network traffic monitoring and analysis.