A breakdown of Cisco ACI pricing

By Jim Duffy, Managing Editor, Network World |

The Cisco Subnet blog is written by Network World managing editor Jim Duffy.

Cisco this week released list pricing for several components of its Application Centric Infrastructure fabric, including several Nexus 9000 series switches and ACI software licenses for leaf switches. Cisco is pricing ACI software as a single perpetual license per leaf to "keep it simple and predictable," says Director of Product Management Thomas Scheibe.

"We don't want to go down the path of per VM or monthly licensing," he said, in a poke at rival VMware's NSX network virtualization platform.

Here is the pricing breakdown of the ACI components and the product IDs for ordering. The Nexus 9000 X9400 line cards are all based on Broadcom Trident 2 silicon; the X9500 line card features a mix of Broadcom Trident 2 and Cisco ACI-capable custom ASICs which are software upgradeable to support the ACI fabric:

Product ID

Product Description

List Price

ACI Spine -Modular

N9K-C9508-B2

Nexus 9508 Common Equipment Bundle 2

$100,000

N9K-X9736PQ

ACI Spine Line Card : 36p QSFP 40G

$30,000

ACI Spine - Fixed

N9K-C9336PQ

ACI Spine Switch: 36p QSFP

$36,000

ACI Leafs

N9K-C9396PX

Nexus 9396PX switch, 48p 10G SFP+ & 12p 40G QSFP+

$32,000

N9K-C93128TX

Nexus 93128TX switch, 96p 1/10G-T & 8p 40G QSFP+

$30,000

ACI Leaf Licenses

ACI-N9K-48X=

ACI SW license for 48p 10G LEAF PORTS

$13,000

ACI-N9K-96X=

ACI SW license for 96p 10G LEAF PORTS

$15,000

ACI-F48G

ACI SW license for N2000: 48 1G ports

$3,000

ACI-F32X

ACI SW license for N2000: 32 10G ports

$7,000

ACI-F48X

ACI SW license for N2000: 48 10G ports

$9,000

APIC Appliance

APIC-CLUSTER-M1

APIC controller cluster for up to 1,000 edge ports (Base Price)

$40,293

APIC-CLUSTER-L1

APIC controller cluster for more than 1,000 edge ports (Base Price)

$58,017

ACI Starter Kits

ACI-C9336-B1-192PX

2 N9336PQ, 4 N9396PX + 4 ACI SW lic, 1 APIC-CLUSTER-M1, 8 40G active optical cabling (AOC)

$250,000

ACI-C9336-B2-384TX

2 N9336PQ, 4 N93128TX + 4 ACI SW lic, 1 APIC-CLUSTER-M1, 8 40G AOC

$275,000

ACI-C9508-B1-96PX

2 N9508 & 2X9736PQ, 2 N9396PX + 2 ACI SW lic, 1 APIC-CLUSTER-M1, 8 40G AOC

$325,000

ACI-C9508-B2-192TX

2 N9508 & 2X9736PQ, 2 N93128TX + 2 ACI SW lic, 1 APIC-CLUSTER-M1, 8 40G AOC

$350,000

Product ID

Product Description

List Price

Nexus 9500 Common Equipment Bundles

N9K-C9504-B3

Nexus 9504 Common Equipment Bundle 3 incl. 4 Fabric Modules (FM)

$55,000

N9K-C9508-B3

Nexus 9508 Common Equipment Bundle 3 incl. 4 FM

$80,000

N9K-C9516-B3

Nexus 9516 Common Equipment Bundle 3 incl. 4 FM

$125,000

Nexus 9500 Linecards

N9K-X9464TX

48p 1/10GT and 4p 40G QSFP+ (4FM required)

$15,000

N9K-X9464PX

48p 1/10G SFP+ and 4p 40G QSFP+ (4FM required)

$15,000

N9K-X9432PQ

32p 40G QSFP+ (4 FM required)

$20,000

N9K-X9536PQ

36p 40G QSFP+, 1.5:1 oversubscribed, ACI Leaf ready (3FM required)

$40,000

Cisco is also offering four starter kit bundles to upgrade legacy Catalyst 6500 and 6500-E series switches in end-of-row data center deployments to the Nexus 9508 with the X9464TX or X9564TX line cards. The Catalyst 6500-E has reached End of Sale status in data centers; it is still offered in the campus environment, however.

Certain models and associated components of the Catalyst 6500 "classic" reached EoS over the course of several years.

Cisco says customers can upgrade their installed Catalyst 6500/6500-E switch base to 10G performance at a price comparable to their initial 1G investments. The upgrade requires no change to cabling and without any server downtime, if servers are dual homed, Cisco says.

Product ID

Product Description

List Price

Nexus 9500 End-of-Row Bundles

N9K-C9508-B38Q

1 N9508-B3, 4 X9464TX LC, 8 QSFP BiDi

$120,000

N9K-C9508-B3R8Q

1 N9508-B3, 4 X9464TX LC, 8 QSFP BiDi, Red Sup

$135,000

N9K-C9508-B28Q

1 N9508-B2, 4 X9564TX LC, 8 QSFP BiDi, ACI Ready Leaf

$150,000

N9K-C9508-B2R8Q

1 N9508-B2, 4 X9564TX LC, 8 QSFP BiDi, Red Sup, ACI Ready Leaf

$165,000

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Jim Duffy has been covering technology for over 28 years, 23 at Network World. He covers enterprise networking infrastructure, including routers and switches. He also writes The Cisco Connection blog and can be reached on Twitter @Jim_Duffy and at [email protected].

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