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Figure 6. 12-Port 10G BASE-T Expansion Module (Front View and Side View)
Layer 3 Daughter Card and Expansion Module Options for Cisco Nexus 5548P, 5548UP,
5596UP, and 5596T Switches
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In addition to these expansion modules, the Cisco Nexus 5548P and 5548UP support a Layer 3 daughter
card that can be ordered with the system or as a spare (field upgradable). This daughter card provides up
to 160 Gbps of Layer 3 forwarding capability (240 million packets per second [mpps]) that can be shared by
all 48 ports in the chassis. As shown in Figure 7, the Layer 3 daughter card does not take up one of the
expansion slots on the rear of the chassis, but instead is installed by replacing the Layer 2 I/O module
(N55-DL2) that is located on the front of the chassis.
Figure 7. Layer 3 Daughter Card on the Cisco Nexus 5548UP Switch
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In addition to these expansion modules, the Cisco Nexus 5596UP and 5596T support a Layer 3 module
that provides up to 160 Gbps of Layer 3 forwarding capability (240 mpps) that can be shared by all the I/O
ports in the chassis (Figure 8).
Figure 8. Layer 3 Module (Front View and Side View)
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Version 2 of Layer 3 daughter cards and expansion modules have enhanced capabilities that increase the
host table size from 8000 to 16,000 entries, or multicast routes from 4000 to 8000 starting from software
release Cisco NX-OS Software Release 5.2(1)N1(1b) and later.
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Requires free of charge a base LAN license (N55-BAS1k9=) to be installed. This is included in the
hardware purchase; however the license would need to be manually installed.
Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders
The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders comprise a category of data center products that provide a
universal server-access platform that scales across a multitude of 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, unified
fabric, rack, and blade server environments. The Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders are designed to
simplify data center architecture and operations by meeting the business and application needs of a data center.
