Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches with Cisco Hypershield At a GlanceSecurity infused into the data center fabric for unprecedented protection
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Secure the AI-scale data center
AI-driven data centers are powerful but complex. Cisco simplifies operations with Nexus® Dashboard for unified oversight and the on-premises Hypershield™ controller for advanced security. In combination with the Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches, these tools enable streamlined management, strong protection, and future-ready infrastructure.
Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches use programmable DPUs for agile operations, integrating with Cisco Nexus Dashboard and the on-premises Cisco Hypershield controller for unified management, AI-powered security, and Layer-4 segmentation. Future upgrades will add NAT, IPsec, telemetry, and DDoS protection.
With this, we enable a first-of-its-kind data center security solution that combines an advanced AI-native, hardware-accelerated distributed security architecture with the data center fabric.
Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches
N9348Y2C6D-SE1U (48x25GbE, 2x100GbE, 6x400GbE)
N9324C-SE1U (24x100GbE)
● Simplified operations, maximum efficiency: Streamlines security and network management with centralized policy orchestration and distributed enforcement, reducing operational overhead.
● Lower TCO, higher ROI: Lowers Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by integrating connectivity, security, and advanced features into a single, efficient solution.
● Performance plus sustainability: Enhances performance and sustainability with high-speed, low-latency, and energy-efficient N9300 smart switches.
● Proactive threat defense: Strengthens threat prevention with AI-native segmentation and secure networking reference design for advanced protection.
● Future-ready infrastructure: Makes data centers ready for future enhancements with DPU-enabled N9300 switches, allowing seamless feature upgrades through software.
AI-powered security in the data center fabric
Cisco Hypershield is designed to continuously and dynamically update policies as applications change, move, or expand. The Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switch utilizes programmable Data Processing Units (DPUs) to enforce Hypershield's policies directly within the switch, delivering high-performance, stateful segmentation on every port.
The N9324C and for Cisco NX-OS fabrics, featuring a mix of 10G, 25G, 100G, and 400G ports, deliver Top-of-Rack (ToR) segmentation capabilities to address east/west segmentation use cases for workloads. These switches can be deployed as leaf switches or border gateways, with segmentation enforcement on every port.
The Cisco N9324C Smart Switch offers 24x100G ports and is engineered to provide stateful Layer-3 and Layer-4 segmentation services for both Cisco ACI® and NX-OS fabrics, ideal for high bandwidth applications such as data-center zones, interconnects, and cloud on-ramps.
Simplified management
The Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switches redefine simplicity in network management, combining advanced automation with seamless security integration.
Smart switch "network and security" use case
● Streamline network operations with intuitive tools such as the Nexus Dashboard NX-API/CLI.
● Gain real-time insights with network policy and telemetry for proactive decision-making.
● Ensure seamless security integration through the on-premises Hypershield controller, managing compliance effortlessly.
● With stateful L4 distributed segmentation, these switches simplify complex fabric deployments, making management efficient and secure.
● Cisco® smart switches and Hypershield are a part of Cisco's Hybrid Mesh Firewall strategy and solution.
These switches are designed to streamline network and security management with a single, centrally orchestrated policy, reduce the number of data center tools and dashboards, and provide high performance with reduced latency and a lower carbon footprint.
● Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switch
● Cisco N9300 Series Smart Switch Data Sheet
● Cisco Hypershield Data Sheet
● Cisco Hybrid Mesh Firewall solution
● Cisco Security Cloud Control
● Cisco Live Protect for Cisco Nexus switching