Cisco Catalyst C9500-40X vs C9500-48Y4C

The Cisco Catalyst C9500-40X-A and C9500-48Y4C-A are both high-performance fixed-core switches designed for enterprise networks, but they differ primarily in port configurations, speed capabilities, and uplink options.

The major differences between the Cisco Catalyst C9500-40X-A and C9500-48Y4C-A switches primarily relate to their port configurations, speed capabilities, and uplink options.

Which One Should You Choose?

• C9500-40X-A: Best suited for 10GbE aggregation, ideal for environments with heavy 10G network traffic but no immediate need for 25G or 100G uplinks.
• C9500-48Y4C-A: A better choice for higher performance environments, supporting 25G access with 100G uplinks, making it more future-proof for scalable data center and enterprise applications.

The C9500-48Y4C Cisco switch offers:

• Higher switching capacity

• Higher forwarding rate

• UADP 3.0 vs UADP 2.0

• Supports 1G/10G/25G instead of just 1G/10G

The major difference between the Cisco C9500-40X and the C9500-48Y4C is that the Cisco C9500-40X offers a swappable module. If all you need is what the 48Y4C offers then that's the better switch for you. If you could benefit from the flexibility of a swappable module, go in that direction.

The 9500-40X uplink modules only come in 1/10G and 40G, the 9500-48YC uplink ports are 40/100G.

Also, the C9500-48Y4C Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series high-performance 48-port 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet switch with SFP/SFP+/SFP28

Conclusion

• If your network relies on 10G and you do not need higher-speed uplinks, the C9500-40X-A is a cost-effective choice.
• If you need higher performance, scalability, and future-proofing, the C9500-48Y4C-A is the better option with 25G downlinks and 100G uplinks.

Cisco Catalyst 9500X models

●      The Cisco Silicon One Q200 Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) is purpose built for the next generation network core + edge switch. It is the first enterprise ASIC to offer speeds up to 12.8 Tbps full duplex with 8 Bpps of forwarding performance, while supporting high-performance and full routing and switching capabilities without external memories.

●      The Cisco Silicon One Q200 ASIC is built on 7nm fabrication technology, capable of high performance while maintaining a low power footprint.

●      Up to 12.8 (switching ASIC capacity) Tbps switching capacity with 8 Bpps forwarding rate.

●      80MB of dedicated low-latency buffer, with up to 8GB of HBM buffer for deep packet buffers.

●      Up to 28 native nonblocking 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP28 ports.

●      Up to 60 native nonblocking 10/25/50 Gigabit Ethernet SFP56 ports.

●      Up to 8 native nonblocking 40/100/200/400 Gigabit Ethernet QSFPDD ports.

●      Intel 2.3-GHz x86 CPU with 8 cores and 32-GB of DDR4 memory.

●      Up to 960 GB of SSD local storage for container-based application hosting (2x 10G KR ports).

●      Flexible routing (IPv4, IPv6, and multicast) tables, Layer 2 tables, ACL tables, and QoS tables.

●      ASIC tables for switching scale up to 256K MAC addresses and routing scale up to 2M routes.

●      Dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 and dynamic hardware forwarding table allocations, for ease of IPv4-to-IPv6 migration.

●      Hardware support for Application Hosting.

●      Hardware support for line-rate 256-bit 802.1ae MACsec and WAN-MACsec data encryption.

●      Cisco StackWise Virtual technology, a network system virtualization technology that increases operational efficiency and boosts nonstop communications and scaled system bandwidth. Multichassis EtherChannel can be configured across StackWise-Virtual members for high resiliency.

●      Platinum-rated (90% efficient) 1500 Watt AC and/or DC power supplies.

●      Field-replaceable, N+1 redundant fan-tray units, with an added flexibility to choose the direction of airflow.

Cisco Catalyst 9500 models

●      The Cisco Unified Access Data Plane (UADP) Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) ready for next-generation technologies with its programmable pipeline, microengine capabilities, and template-based, configurable allocation of Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding, Access Control Lists (ACLs), and Quality-of-Service (QoS) entries.

●      Up to 6.4 Tbps switching capacity with up to 2 Bpps of forwarding performance.

●      Up to 36 MB of unified buffer per ASIC.

●      Intel 2.4-GHz x86 CPU with up to 120 GB of USB 3.0 or up to 960 GB of SATA SSD storage for container-based application hosting.

●      Up to 32 nonblocking 100 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP28 ports.

●      Up to 32 nonblocking 40 Gigabit Ethernet QSFP+ ports.

●      Up to 48 nonblocking 25 Gigabit Ethernet SFP28 ports.

●      Up to 48 nonblocking 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ ports.

●      Scalable Layer 3 routing (IPv4, IPv6, and multicast) tables and Layer 2 switching tables.

●      Hardware support for Application Hosting.

●      IEEE 802.1ba AV Bridging (AVB) built in to provide a better AV 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 the network.

●      Support for both static and dynamic NAT and Port Address Translation (PAT).

●      Cisco StackWise Virtual technology, a network system virtualization technology that increases operational efficiency and boosts nonstop communications and scaled system bandwidth. Multichassis EtherChannel can be configured across StackWise-Virtual members for high resiliency.

●      Platinum-rated (Greater than 90% efficient) AC and/pr DC power supplies.

●      Field-replaceable fan-tray units.

●      Meraki Cloud monitoring option.

Cisco IOS XE

This modern operating system for the enterprise provides support for model-driven programmability, on-box Python scripting, streaming telemetry, container-based application hosting, and patching for critical bug fixes. Cisco IOSXE also has built-in defenses to protect against runtime attacks.

●      Simplified Campus Automation is designed to optimize the discovery and configuration of devices in your network with a more streamlined simple and easy-to-use automation tool. With features such as simplified discovery, IT can discover devices within the network within just a few steps. Also available is a more streamlined GUI that provides a better simplified view of switch configurations and software details on a port-by-port basis.

●      Cisco 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.

●      Automated device provisioning: This is the ability to automate the process of upgrading software images and installing configuration files on Cisco Catalyst switches when they are being deployed in the network for the first time. Cisco provides both turnkey solutions such as Plug and Play (PnP) and off-the-shelf tools such as Zero-Touch Provisioning (ZTP) and Preboot Execution Environment (PXE) that enable an effortless and automated deployment.

●      API-driven configuration: Modern network switches such the Cisco Catalyst 9500 Series support a wide range of automation features and provide robust open APIs over Network Configuration Protocol (NETCONF, RESTCONF and gNMI) using YANG data models for external tools, both off-the-shelf and custom built, to automatically provision network resources.

●      Granular visibility: Model-driven telemetry provides a mechanism to stream data from a switch to a destination. The data to be streamed is driven through subscription to a data set in a YANG model. The subscribed data set is streamed out to the destination at configured intervals. Additionally, Cisco IOS XE enables the push model, which provides near- real-time monitoring of the network, leading to quick detection and rectification of failures.

●      Seamless software upgrades and patching: To enhance OS resilience, Cisco IOS XE supports patching, which provides fixes for critical bugs and security vulnerabilities between regular maintenance releases. This support allows customers to add patches without having to wait for the next maintenance release.

●      Cloud monitoring for Catalyst: Integrated view of Catalyst 9500 switches, seamlessly integrated into the Meraki dashboard experience. Cloud monitoring provides the ability to view Catalyst 9500 Series switch statistics, configuration, and troubleshooting capabilities. While the switch will be automatically tagged with "Monitor Only" in the dashboard to distinguish from fully managed Meraki switches, "Monitor Only" Catalyst 9500 switch appears and functions very similarly to Meraki MS switches in the dashboard, including a visual representation of connected ports and traffic information. With cloud monitoring, Cisco IOS XE features, configuration and management continues to be done via The various automation mechanisms are outlined above. As a monitoring tool, most operations are read-only. All live troubleshooting capabilities will also not result in persistent changes to configuration following the troubleshooting operation.

●      WebUI: Embedded GUI-based device-management tool that provides the ability to provision the device, to simplify device deployment and manageability and to enhance the user experience. WebUI comes with the default image. There is no need to enable anything or install any license on the device. You can use WebUI to build a day-1 configuration and from then on monitor and troubleshoot the device without having to know how to use the CLI.

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/switches/catalyst-9500-series-switches/nb-06-cat9500-ser-data-sheet-cte-en.html