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.

The Cisco Nexus 3172PQ-XL and Cisco Nexus 3172TQ-XL 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.

Configuration

The Cisco Nexus 3172 switches have the following configurations:

- Cisco Nexus 3172PQ and 3172PQ-XL

- 48 fixed 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ ports (can operate at 100-Mbps, 1-Gbps, and 10-Gbps speeds)

- 6 fixed QSFP+ ports (each QSFP+ port can support 4 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 40 Gigabit Ethernet)

- Cisco Nexus 3172TQ and 3172TQ-XL

- 48 fixed 10GBASE-T ports (can operate at 100-Mbps, 1-Gbps, and 10-Gbps speeds)

- 6 fixed QSFP+ ports (each QSFP+ port can support 4 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 40 Gigabit Ethernet)

- Cisco Nexus 3172TQ-32T

-  32 fixed 10GBASE-T ports (can operate at 100-Mbps, 1-Gbps, and 10-Gbps speeds)

- Six fixed QSFP+ ports (each QSFP+ port can support 4 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 40 Gigabit Ethernet)

- Upgrade to 48 fixed 10GBASE-T and 6 QSFP+ ports by installing a 16-port upgrade license

- Locator LED

- Dual redundant[1] power supplies

- Redundant (3+1) and hot-swappable fans

- One 10/100/1000-Mbps management port

- One RS-232 serial console port

- One USB port