Cisco C9606R Switch

Overview

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches are purpose-built for resiliency at scale and with comprehensive security that allows your business to grow at a low total operational cost. Built upon the foundation of the Catalyst 9000, the Catalyst 9600 Series offers scale and security when always-on is a must.

Twice as fast, twice the capacity: Meet your new campus core

Platform highlights

As one of the industry’s first purpose-built 25/50 Gigabit SFP and 100/400 Gigabit QSFP line of modular switches targeted for the enterprise campus, Catalyst 9600 Series switches deliver exceptional table scale (MAC, IP route, and access control list [ACL]) and buffering for enterprise applications.

Key features and benefits

Modular versatility

Smart operations

High availability and resiliency

Performance and scalability

Advanced security

Automation and analytics

Cisco IOS XE: A modern, fully programmable, model-driven network operating system

Cisco IOS XE Software opens a new paradigm in network configuration, operation, and monitoring through network automation. Cisco’s automation solution is open, standards-based, and extensible across the entire lifecycle of a network device. The various automation mechanisms are outlined below.

Cisco IOS XE key features and benefits

Simplified campus automation

Automated device provisioning

API-driven configuration

Granular visibility

Seamless software upgrades and patching

Trustworthy solutions built with Cisco Trust Anchor Technologies

Models and specifications

A fully assembled Catalyst 9600 Series switch includes the chassis, at least one or two supervisor engines, at least one line card for network connectivity, a fan tray, and at least two power supplies.

Figure 1. Front view of a Cisco Catalyst 9606R

Chassis

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches offer one chassis option, two supervisor options, and multiple line-card options. The Catalyst 9606R chassis provides a common architecture that can scale up to 224 native 10-Gigabit, 25-Gigabit or 50-Gigabit SFP56 Ethernet ports (or up to 256 SFP with QSFP-4SFP breakout cables), and up to 128 native 40-Gigabit or 100-Gigabit QSFP28, or up to 8 native 400-Gigabit QSFP-DD Ethernet ports. The Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series redundant chassis offers High Availability (HA) by supporting 1 + 1 redundant supervisor engines with Stateful Switchover (SSO), Non-Stop Forwarding (NSF), and full-image In-Service Software Upgrades (ISSU). NSF/SSO and ISSU help ensure continuous packet forwarding during supervisor engine switchover to enable HA for business-critical applications.

The Catalyst C9606R chassis is enterprise-campus optimized, with efficient side-to-side airflow and full front accessibility for all removable components, including supervisors, line cards, power supplies, and a fan tray. The chassis also supports optional rear accessibility for the fan tray to enable efficient cable management. The Catalyst 9606R chassis, supervisor, line cards, power supply, and fan tray have embedded RFID tags that facilitate easy asset and inventory management using commercial RFID readers. 

Figure 2. Rear and side view of Catalyst 9600 C9606R chassis

Cisco Catalyst 9606R chassis supports a wired switching capacity of up to 25.6 Tbps (12.8 Tbps full-duplex), with up to 6.4 Tbps (3.2 Tbps full-duplex) of bandwidth per slot.

Table 1. Chassis features

Specifications

Table 2. Physical specifications of the Cisco Catalyst 9606R chassis

Fan tray

Each Cisco Catalyst 9606R chassis uses a single field-replaceable fan tray (C9606-FAN) for cooling. The fan tray can optionally be accessed from the rear for flexible cable management. The chassis is optimized for enterprisecampus wiring closets and rack rooms, with side-to-side airflow. The fan tray is composed of nine independently controlled fans. If any single fan fails, the system will continue to operate without a significant degradation in cooling as fan speeds change dynamically to compensate for fan failure.

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series fans have a barometric sensor, which allows slower fan speed curves at lower altitudes. The fans also have individual Pulse-Wide Modulation (PWM) fine-tuning to reduce variability in fan revolutions per minute (rpm) under throttled conditions. The measured acoustic noise in a formal NEBS test environment is 77.7 LWAd (dB). The chassis is designed to accommodate fanless operation of up to 90 seconds to enable serviceability.

Figure 3. Cisco Catalyst 9606R chassis with fan tray and fan tray

Power supplies

The Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series power supply units (PSUs) support two modes of operation.

Figure 4. Cisco Catalyst C9606R 2000W AC and DC power supplies

Combined mode

The default Catalyst 9606R chassis power supply mode is Combined. In Combined mode, the total power available for the entire chassis is equal to the sum of the output of all the power supplies, multiplied by the share ratio. Additional power supply units operate at ~90% capacity. In Combined mode, the power supplies need to be of equal wattage. The power supplies can be AC and DC mixed provided AC input voltage is 220V.

• P = Power output of one PSU
• N = Number of PSU (1, 2, 3, or 4)
• Total combined power = P + (N-1) * P * (share ratio)

Redundant N+1 Mode

The Catalyst 9606R chassis also supports N+1 redundancy mode, with N independent input circuits and safeguards against the failure of one (+1) of the circuits during a PSU failure. Additional PSUs operate at ~90% capacity. In redundant mode, the power supplies need to be of equal wattage. The power supplies can be AC and DC mixed provided AC input voltage is 220V.

• N = number of PSU are active (1, 2, or 3)
• +1 is the PSU reserved for redundancy

For more information, please visit the Catalyst 9600 Switches System Management Configuration Guide.

Power supply specifications

Table 3. Power supply specifications for Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series switches

Table 4. Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series power cord options

Power consumption

Power consumption depends on the hardware configuration, that is, the specific supervisor engine and line cards installed and the power supplies. To model the power consumption for a specific hardware configuration, please visit the Cisco Power Calculator.

Supervisor engines

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches offer industry-leading supervisor engines built for secure networks, IoT applications, next-generation mobility, and cloud adoption.

The Catalyst 9600 Supervisor Engine 1 (SUP-1) is built with the latest UADP 3.0 ASIC, with its programmable pipeline and template-based, configurable allocation of Layer 2 and Layer 3 forwarding, ACLs and QoS entries, making it optimal for next-generation Campus Distribution or Collapsed-Core designs.

The new Catalyst 9600X Supervisor Engine 2 (SUP-2) is based on the new Cisco Silicon One Q200 ASIC, which is purpose-built for the next-generation Campus Core and Edge designs with high-performance and scale routing and switching capabilities.

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Supervisor Engine 1

Supervisor Engine 1 use cases:

• C9600-SUP-1 is specifically designed for customers focusing on Layer 3 (core or collapsed-core) deployments with medium L2 and L3 forwarding scale and features, and higher ACL scale.
• Intended for combined L2 and L3 (distribution/aggregation) deployments, with comprehensive features.
• Provides bandwidth for dense medium-speed interfaces from 1G-25G SFP and 40G-100G QSFP, with optimized QoS buffers.
• Suitable for medium-scale VXLAN deployment as SDA LISP or BGP EVPN Border/Spine nodes, along with advanced Campus technologies such as NAT, VPLS and mVPN.

Supervisor Engine 1 highlights:

• The Cisco UADP 3.0 ASIC is future-ready for next-generation core technologies, with a programmable pipeline, micro-engine capabilities, and template-based customizable allocation of Layer 2, Layer 3, forwarding, ACL, and Quality-of- Service (QoS) entries.
• Cisco UADP 3.0 ASIC offers speeds up to 9.6 Tbps (4.8 Tbps full duplex) with up to 3 Bpps of forwarding performance.
• Cisco UADP 3.0 ASIC is the first to support double-width hardware tables with equivalent table size and processing performance for IPv4 and IPv6.
• Up to 108 MB of buffer (36 MB of unified buffer per ASIC).
• Intel 2.0-GHz x86 CPU with 8 cores and 16GB of DDR4 memory.
• Up to 960 GB of SATA SSD local storage for container-based application hosting.
• Line-rate, hardware-based Flexible NetFlow (FNF) delivers flow collection for up to 294,000 flows.
• IPv6 support in hardware provides wire-rate forwarding for IPv6 networks.
• Dual-stack support for IPv4 and IPv6 and dynamic hardware forwarding table allocations enable easy IPv4-to-IPv6 migration.
• Flexible routing (IPv4, IPv6, and multicast) tables, Layer 2 tables, ACL tables, and QoS tables.

Cisco Catalyst 9600X Supervisor Engine 2

Supervisor Engine 2 use cases:

• C9600X-SUP-2 is specifically designed for customers focusing on Layer 3 (core or edge) deployments with large L2 and L3 forwarding scale, with baseline L2 features and optimized ACL scale.
• Intended for campus gateway (internet) deployments that require high IPv4 or IPv6 route scale.
• Provides bandwidth for dense high-speed interfaces from 10G-50G SFP and 40G-400G QSFP, with deep QoS buffers.
• Suitable for high-scale VXLAN deployment as SDA LISP or BGP EVPN border/spine nodes.

Supervisor Engine 2 highlights:

• The Cisco Silicon One Q200 (ASIC) is purpose-built for the next generation network core and edge switch.
• Cisco Silicon One Q200 ASIC offers speeds up to 25.6 Tbps (12.8 Tbps full duplex) with up to 8 Bpps of forwarding performance.
• Cisco Silicon One Q200 ASIC is built on 7nm fabrication technology, capable of high performance while maintaining a low power footprint.
• Cisco Silicon One Q200 ASIC includes an 8GB on-chip 2.5D High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), for deep packet buffers and route table expansion.
• 80MB of dedicated low-latency buffer, with up to 8GB of HBM buffer.
• Intel 2.7-GHz x86 CPU with 8 cores and 32GB of DDR4 memory.
• Up to 960 GB of SATA SSD local storage for container-based application hosting (2x 10G SFP+ management ports).
• ASIC tables for switching scale up to 256K MAC addresses and IP routing scale up to 2M routes.
• IPv6 support in hardware provides wire-rate forwarding for IPv6 networks.
• Dual-stack support for IPv4 and IPv6 and dynamic hardware forwarding table allocations enable easy IPv4-to-IPv6 migration.
• Flexible routing (IPv4, IPv6, and multicast) tables, Layer 2 tables, ACL tables, and QoS tables..

Supervisor engine comparison

The Catalyst 9600 series Supervisor Engine 1 (with Cisco UADP 3.0) and Supervisor Engine 2 (with Cisco S1 Q200) are intended to be complementary products, and each model offers unique capabilities to meet specific networking needs. Each model plays a crucial and distinctive role in our portfolio. Both products may coexist in the same network, operating in complementary roles.

Table 5. Feature comparison for Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series supervisor engines

Cisco Feature Navigator

Table 6. Switch performance

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series switches have flexible interface types and port densities that allow you to mix and match network configurations to meet the specific needs of campus networks. See the following table for more information.

Table 7. Maximum chassis port densities

Supervisor engine specifications

The following table lists physical specifications of Catalyst 9600X Supervisor Engine 2 and Supervisor Engine 1.

Table 8. Physical specifications for Catalyst 9600X Supervisor Engines

Supervisor ASIC templates

Cisco Catalyst 9000 Series switches use flexible Software Database Manager (SDM) ASIC templates to enable universal deployments by leveraging the ASIC's ability to flexibly allocate resources to optimize table sizes for different places in the network. 

Based on how the switch is used in the network, an appropriate standard SDM ASIC template may configured for specific features. The Catalyst 9600 Series Supervisor Engines support two types of SDM ASIC templates:

• Standard SDM templates: These are predefined (static) templates, based on the primary requirements for specific places in the network.
  • This includes the "default" SDM template, which is available without configuration. The default SDM template for Catalyst 9600 is the "core" template.
• Custom SDM templates: These are user-configured templates, using a set of forwarding (FIB) and/or access-control (ACL) allocation parameters.

For more information, please visit Configuring SDM templates.

1. SDM templates - C9600-SUP-1

The following sections describe the Flexible ASIC SDM templates for C9600-SUP-1.

Standard SDM ASIC templates

The following table describes the standard SDM ASIC templates for C9600-SUP-1.

Table 9. SDM template descriptions for C9600-SUP-1

Custom ASIC templates

Beginning with the Cisco IOS XE 17.3.1 release, a custom SDM template will allow you to configure the forwarding (FIB) and access-control (ACL) features of the template based on your requirements.

Table 10. Custom template configurable FIB values for C9600-SUP-1

Table 11. Custom template configurable ACL values

2. SDM templates — C9600X-SUP-2

The following sections describe the Flexible ASIC SDM templates for C9600X-SUP-2.

Default SDM ASIC template

The following table describes the default SDM ASIC (Core) template for C9600X-SUP-2.

Table 12. SDM template descriptions for C9600X-SUP-2

Custom ASIC templates

Beginning with the Cisco IOS XE 17.7.1 release, a custom SDM template allows you to configure several forwarding (FIB) features of the template based on your requirements. Note that access-control (ACL) customization is not supported and uses a shared (first-come, first-serve) model.

The following table describes the Custom SDM ASIC templates for C9600X-SUP-2.

Table 13. Custom template FIB configurable values for C9600X-SUP-2

Line cards

Line cards provide the physical network ports and are essential modular components that enhance the adaptability and performance of Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series switches, meeting diverse network requirements and helping to protect the investment in network infrastructure.

Line card models

C9600X-LC-56YL4C

56-port 50/25/10GE, 4-port 100GE line card

Line card use cases:

• C9600X-LC-56YL4C combo card is specifically designed for high port-density Campus Core or Distribution designs, with majority SFP optics.
• The unique 3-row 1RU design provides 56 ports of multi-rate SFP56 ports to connect to downstream devices (for example, Access switches).
• The same line card also provides 2 ports of multi-rate QSFP28 ports to connect to upstream devices (for example, SP or DC switches), without need for addition modules.

Line card highlights:

• Paired with C9600X-SUP-2 (3.2 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth), this line card provides up to 56 ports of 50/25/10GE, 4 ports of 40/100GE non-blocking.
• 50/25/10/1GE¹ SFP56, 100GE QSFP28 ports.
• Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) support with the powerful MACsec and WAN MACsec encryption algorithm².

Notes:

1. C9600X-SUP-2 only supports SFP-1G-SX/LH optics for 1Gbps. See Cisco TMG Matrix or IOS-XE 17.14.1 Release Notes for details.
2. WAN MACsec is supported only on C9600X-SUP-2 and HSEC license required.

C9600X-LC-32CD

30-port 100/40GE, 2-port 200GE, 2-port 400GE line card

Line card use cases:

• C9600X-LC-32CD combo card is specifically designed for high port-density Campus Core or Edge designs, with majority QSFP optics.
• Able to support 32 line-rate QSFP28 ports for maximum high-speed upstream or downstream connections.
• Able to convert four QSFP28 ports into two QSFP-DD port for high-speed connections to upstream devices (for example, SP or DC switches).

Line card highlights:

• Paired with C9600X-SUP-2 (3.2 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth), this line card provides up to 30 ports of 100/40 GE, 2 ports of 400/200/100 GE non-blocking.
• 100/40 GE QSFP28, 400/200 GE QSFP-DD ports.
• Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) support with the powerful MACsec and WAN MACsec encryption algorithm¹.

Notes:

1. WAN MACsec is supported only on C9600X-SUP-2 and HSEC license required.

C9600-LC-40YL4CD

40-port 50/25/10GE, 2-port 200GE, 2-port 400GE line card

Line card use cases:

• C9600-LC-40YL4CD combo card is specifically designed for medium-high port-density Campus Core or Distribution designs, with both SFP and QSFP optics.
• The traditional 2-row 1RU design provides 40 ports of multi-rate SFP56 ports to connect to downstream devices (for example, Access switches).
• The same line card also provides 2 ports of multi-rate QSFP28 ports and two port of multi-rate QSFP-DD to connect to upstream devices (for example, SP or DC switches), without need for addition modules.
• This line card can also operate with both Supervisor Engine 2 or Supervisor Engine 1, providing increased flexibility and reusability.

Line card highlights:

• Paired with C9600X-SUP-2 (3.2 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth), this line card provides up to 40 non-blocking ports of 50/25/10/1GE¹, 2 ports of 40/100/200² GE and 2 ports of 400GE.
• Paired with C9600-SUP-1 (1.2 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth),  
  this line card provides up to 40 non-blocking ports of 25/10/1GE and 2 ports of 40/100GE.
• 50/25/10GE SFP56, 100GE QSFP28, 200GE² QSFP56 and 400GE QSFP-DD ports.
• Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) support with the powerful MACsec and WAN MACsec encryption algorithm³.

Notes:

1. C9600X-SUP-2 only supports SFP-1G-SX/LH optics for 1Gbps. See Cisco TMG Matrix or IOS-XE 17.14.1 Release Notes for details.
2. Hardware-capable with C9600X-SUP-2.
3. WAN MACsec is supported only on C9600X-SUP-2 and HSEC license required.

C9600-LC-24C

24-port 100/40GE line card

Line card use cases:

• C9600-LC-24C line card is specifically designed for medium port-density Campus Core designs, with majority QSFP optics.
• Able to support 24 line-rate QSFP28 ports for high-density high-speed upstream or downstream connections.
• This line card can also operate with both Supervisor Engine 2 or Supervisor Engine 1, providing increased flexibility and reusability.

Line card highlights:

• Paired with C9600-SUP-1 (1.2 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth),  
  this line card provides up to 24 non-blocking ports of 40 GE or 12 non-blocking ports of 100 GE.
• Paired with C9600X-SUP-2 (3.2 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth), this line card provides up to 24 non-blocking ports of 100/40 GE.
• 40 GE, 100 GE QSFP28 ports.
• Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) support with the powerful MACsec-256 encryption algorithm is available on the UADP 3.0 ASIC¹.

Notes:

• This line card does not support MACsec with C9600X-SUP-2.

C9600-LC-48YL

48-port 50¹/25GE/10GE/1GE line card

Line card use cases:

• C9600-LC-48YL line card is specifically designed for high port-density Campus Core or Distribution designs, with majority SFP optics.
• Able to support 48 line-rate SFP56 ports for high-density high-speed upstream or downstream connections.
• This line card can also operate with both Supervisor Engine 2 or Supervisor Engine 1, providing increased flexibility and reusability.

Line card highlights:

• Paired with C9600-SUP-1 (1.2 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth), this line card provides up to 48 nonblocking ports of 25/10/1GE².
• Paired with C9600X-SUP-2 (3.2 Tbps full-duplex bandwidth), this line card provides up to 48 nonblocking ports of 50¹/25/10/1GE².
• 50¹, 25, 10, and 1 GE2 SFP28, SFP+ ports.
• Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) support with the powerful MACsec-256 encryption algorithm is available on the UADP ASIC³.

Notes:

• 50GE support is available only on C9600X-SUP-2.
• C9600X-SUP-2 only supports SFP-1G-SX/LH optics for 1Gbps. See Cisco TMG Matrix or IOS-XE 17.14.1 Release Notes for details.
• This line card does not support MACsec with C9600X-SUP-2.

C9600-LC-48TX

48-port multigigabit RJ45 copper line card

Line card use cases:

• C9600-LC-48TX line card is specifically designed for high port-density Campus Distribution or Access designs, with majority Multi Gigabit (mGiG) RJ45 ports.
• Able to support 48 line-rate 10G-baseT mGig ports for high-density high-speed downstream connections, based on copper cabling.
• This line card can also operate with both Supervisor Engine 2 or Supervisor Engine 1, providing increased flexibility and reusability.

Line card highlights:

• Supported on C9600-SUP-1 and C9600X-SUP-2
• 48 ports nonblocking.
• 10GE, 5GE, 2.5GE, 1GE, 100Mbps multigigabit RJ45 copper ports¹.
• Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) support with the powerful MACsec-256 encryption algorithm is available on the UADP 3.0 ASIC².

Notes:

1. Only 10 GE supported on C9600X-SUP-2.
2. This line card does not support MACsec with C9600X-SUP-2.

C9600-LC-48S

48-port 1GE line card

Line card use cases:

• C9600-LC-48S line card is specifically designed for high port-density Campus Distribution or Access designs, with majority SFP optics.
• Able to support 48 line-rate SFP ports for high-density high-speed upstream or downstream connections.

Line card highlights:

• Supported only on C9600-SUP-1.
• 48 ports nonblocking 100M/1GE.
• Advanced Encryption Standard 256 (AES-256) support with the powerful MACsec-256 encryption algorithm is available on the UADP 3.0 ASIC¹.

Notes:

1. UADP 3.0 ASIC is part of Supervisor Engine 1.

Line card compatibility

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series switches offers the ability to mix and match a range of line cards to support numerous cores and distribution deployments. Supported line cards are listed in the following tables by part number.

Table 14. Line card-compatibility and minimum software requirement

Line card specifications

Table 15. Port information

Table 16. Power details

Catalyst 9600X-SUP-2 provides higher power to support higher high port speeds and density.

Table 17. Mean time before failure (MTBF)

Table 18. Standards, technologies, environmental specifications

Pluggable optics

Optical transceivers, also known as pluggable optics, are required to operate a Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series fiber optic Line Card. Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series fiber optic Line Cards provide a variety of optical port types and speeds. These are compatible with Cisco-branded or non-Cisco branded optical transceivers.

For details about the different optical modules supported by each line card and the minimum Cisco software release required for each of the supported optical modules, please visit the following links:

Optics compatibility for each Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Line Card:

• C9600X-LC-56YL4C (56-port 50/25/10/1GE, 4-port 40/100GE)
• C9600X-LC-32CD (30-port 100/40GE, 2-port 200GE, 2-port 400GE)
• C9600-LC-40YL4CD (40-port 50/25/10GE, 2-port 200GE, 2-port 400GE)
• C9600-LC-24C  (24-port 40GE/12-port 100GE)
• C9600-LC-48YL (48-port 50 /25GE/10GE/1GE)
• C9600-LC-48S  (48-Port 100M/1GE)
• C9600-LC-48TX (48-port RJ45 Copper - No optical interfaces available)

For more information about Cisco pluggable optics, please visit Optical Transceivers and Coherent Optics.

Licensing

You have two options for licensing: unified switching licenses or Cisco DNA licenses. The details for each licensing model are as follows.

Unified licensing with the Cisco Networking Subscription

The Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series is eligible for unified licensing through the Cisco Networking Subscription and Cisco Enterprise Agreement.

The Cisco Networking Subscription provides a consistent way to purchase and manage eligible Cisco networking software, hardware support, services, and platform capabilities. It offers customers the flexibility to:

• Align renewal dates with business and budget requirements
• Add licenses to an existing subscription while maintaining a common renewal date
• Upgrade license entitlements during the subscription term or at renewal
• Include both Essentials and Advantage licenses in the same subscription
• Choose cloud-based or on-premises license management and deployment options, where supported 

A new Cisco Networking Subscription with switching licenses has a standard minimum term of 36 months.

There is one available switching license tier for the Catalyst 9600 Series:

• Cisco Switching Advantage

Cisco Switching Advantage includes the Essentials capabilities and adds advanced automation, analytics, segmentation, assurance, security, application visibility, and fabric-management capabilities.

For a complete list of license features, see the Cisco Switching Licensing Feature Matrix.

Unified licensing support is available for the following releases: 26.2.1, 17.18.5, and 26.1.3.

Cisco DNA licensing

Cisco DNA subscriptions for the Catalyst 9600 Series are offered in the Advantage tier with 3-, 5-, or 7-year terms. The Cisco DNA Advantage tier corresponds with the Network Advantage license.

• Cisco DNA Advantage adds advanced assurance, analytics, policy-based automation, segmentation, and application-visibility capabilities.

As part of the Cisco DNA Advantage license, the Catalyst 9600 Series supports the following perpetual network license tier:

• Network Advantage

Network Advantage provides foundational Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching, automation, visibility, and security capabilities, along with advanced routing, segmentation, multicast, scale, and security capabilities.

Introduction to Smart Licensing

Cisco Smart Licensing is a flexible licensing model that provides you with an easier, faster, and more consistent way to purchase and manage software across the Cisco portfolio and across your organization. And it’s secure— you control what users can access. With Smart Licensing you get:

• Easy activation: Smart Licensing establishes a pool of software licenses that can be used across the entire organization—no more PAKs (product activation keys).
• Unified management: My Cisco Entitlements provides a complete view into all of your Cisco products and services in an easy-to-use portal, so you always know what you have and what you are using.
• License flexibility: Your software is not node-locked to your hardware, so you can easily use, and transfer licenses as needed.

To use Smart Licensing, you must first set up a Smart Account on Cisco Software Central (software.cisco.com).

For a more detailed overview of Cisco Licensing, go to cisco.com/go/licensingguide.

Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series switches run on Cisco IOS XE Release 16.9.2 or later.

Managing licenses with Smart Accounts

Creating Smart Accounts by using the Cisco Smart Software Manager (SSM) enables you to order devices and licensing packages and also manage your software licenses from a centralized website. You can set up Cisco SSM to receive daily email alerts and to be notified of expiring add-on licenses that you want to renew.

You must order an add-on license in order to purchase a switch. When the license term expires, you can either renew the add-on license to continue using it or deactivate the add-on license and then reload the switch to continue operating with the base license capabilities.

Both the base and add-on licenses are also available for a 90-day evaluation period. An evaluation license is activated temporarily, without purchase. An expired evaluation license cannot be reactivated after reload.

Note: You are not required to deploy Cisco Catalyst Center, just to use one of the above packages.  

Migration essentials

The Cisco Catalyst 9000 switching platform is designed for the new era of networking, with ASIC and software innovations to deliver an intent-based network. Within the Cisco Catalyst 9000 Series switching family, the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches are Cisco’s leading modular enterprise switching core and distribution platform, built for intent-based architecture, security, Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud. 

Simply put, Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches provide better functionality, performance, and security than previous models.

Why upgrade

The benefits of upgrading to the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches

Key benefits:

• Catalyst 9000 family, are built to transform your network to handle a hybrid world where the workplace is anywhere, endpoints could be anything, and applications are hosted all over the place.
• Reduced cost, complexity and downtime with Cisco Software-Defined Access. Automate policy, enable fast service creation and get 360-degree contextual insights across users, devices, and applications. Assure network performance with real-time and historical data analytics, to learn, adapt, and even detect problems before they happen.
• Create better customer and employee experiences through higher performance and improved support for mobility and new apps.
• Advanced end-to-end security designed to work together to detect and stop threats, simplify security complexity, keep your business more secure and make your IT more productive.
• The Catalyst 9000 family is also the first in the line to offer the Cisco IOS XE and Cisco Catalyst subscription- based software licenses, allowing customers to purchase the features and capabilities they need. See the benefits you could be receiving now by comparing the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series to older switches.

Ordering information

Table 19. Ordering information

Appendix

Safety and compliance

Chassis

The section below lists the safety and compliance information for the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series chassis.

Supervisor Engine

The section below lists the safety and compliance information for the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Supervisor Engines.

Line cards

The section below lists the safety and compliance information for the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series line cards.

Management and Industry standards

The following section lists management and standards support for the Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series.

Documentation and support 

• Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Architecture White Paper
• Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches Hardware Installation Guide
• Cisco Catalyst 9600 Series Switches Ordering Guide
• Enterprise Networks Software Subscription Matrix for Switching
• Migrating from Cisco Catalyst 6500/6800 to 9600 Series Switches (PDF)
• Benefits of Upgrading to Cisco Catalyst 9000 Switches Feature Comparison
• Cisco Power Calculator
• Cisco Support Home for Catalyst 9606R Switch
• Networking customer stories