Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches with Cisco Hypershield At a Glance
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Secure the AI-scale data center network
AI has revolutionized modern data centers, but managing these complex infrastructures is challenging. Securing environments with both owned and unowned resources is difficult due to the complexity of security policy creation and enforcement, impacting digital resilience and troubleshooting. Simply upgrading infrastructure isn’t sufficient anymore; security and network services must be fused into the very fabric of the data center.
The Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches are Cisco’s groundbreaking family of data center switches, powered by programmable Data Processing Units (DPUs). These switches embed stateful services directly into the data-center fabric at scale, delivering simplicity, blazing service throughput, and cost efficiency.
With the Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches, your data center is secure and future-ready. This extensible platform supports hardware-accelerated services such as Layer-4 zone segmentation* powered by Cisco Hypershield™ and managed through Cisco Security Cloud Control. And that’s just the beginning — additional software upgrades will unlock services such as large-scale NAT, IPsec encryption, IDS/IPS, event-based telemetry, and DDoS protection.
By integrating Cisco Hypershield, we delivered a first-of-its-kind data-center security solution.
*Layer-4 zone segmentation capabilities are with appropriate licensing and will be coming soon.
Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches
Cisco N9324C-SE1U (24x100GbE)
Cisco N9348Y2C6D-SE1U (48x25GbE, 2x100GbE, 6x400GbE)
● Simplified security management: centrally orchestrate security policies with ease
● Streamlined operations: use fewer tools, fewer dashboards, get more efficiency
● High performance, low impact: enjoy reduced latency, a smaller carbon footprint, and top-tier performance
● Cost savings: combine connectivity and security into one cohesive solution
● Comprehensive protection: have every fabric port secured with robust services
● Smarter NetSecOps: simplify management and automate policies for better efficiency
● AI-powered threat prevention: leverage cutting-edge segmentation to block advanced threats
● Future-ready design: DPU-enabled switches ready for tomorrow’s challenges with simple software upgrades
AI-powered security in every port
Cisco Hypershield dynamically updates policies as applications evolve, move, or expand. The Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches utilize programmable Data Processing Units (DPUs) to enforce these policies directly within the switch, delivering high-performance, stateful segmentation on every port.
● Cisco N9324C Smart Switch: 24x100G ports, engineered to provide stateful Layer-3 and Layer-4 segmentation services, ideal for high bandwidth applications such as data-center zones, interconnects, and cloud on-ramps
● Cisco N9348Y2C6D Smart Switch: a mix of 25G, 100G, and 400G ports, perfect for east/west and Top-of-Rack (ToR) segmentation use cases for workloads. These switches can be deployed as leaf switches or border gateways, with segmentation enforcement on every port.
Simplified management
The Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches will integrate effortlessly into existing network operations using Cisco’s NX-OS APIs with Cisco Nexus® Dashboard, integral to the on-premises Cisco Nexus One operational model. Customers can centrally monitor, manage, and configure network fabrics and devices. Security policies are provisioned and managed on the switch DPUs by Hypershield’s SaaS-based management tool, Cisco Security Cloud Control. This allows both operation teams to simultaneously manage the switch without conflict.
With the Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall solution, you can manage security policies across public-cloud workloads, on-premises segmentation, and traditional firewalls — all under one unified system.
A first-of-its-kind solution
The Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches redefine what’s possible in data-center security by embedding network and security services directly where they’re needed most.
Standout features:
● Security infused: no extra hardware needed; security is native to the fabric
● Autonomous segmentation: uses Cisco Hypershield to drive autonomous segmentation policies and enhance both security and efficiency.
● Always up-to-date: helps to ensure strong security posture with seamless, minimizing disruption risks
● High-performance segmentation: delivers high-performance network segmentation, simplifies routing while cutting costs
● Uniform policy standards: provides consistent policy enforcement across multiple domains, ensuring the highest security standards
Ready now, built for what’s next
“We are excited about the potential of Cisco’s Hypershield-enabled N9300 Series Nexus Smart Switches. Our investment in this technology enables us to seamlessly align our security and networking strategies, while maintaining the flexibility to evolve each independently. This capability enhances our agility, reduces operational risk, and ensures our infrastructure continues to keep pace with the growing demands of our business.”
— Eric Bradley, Chief Information Officer, TaxSlayer
Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches deliver instant performance boosts and streamlined operations, ensuring secure, scalable, and future-ready data-center infrastructure.
● Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches
● Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switch Data Sheet
● Cisco Hypershield Data Sheet
● Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall solution
● Cisco Security Cloud Control
● Cisco Nexus One Solution Overview