Catalyst 9500

Cisco Catalyst 9500 switches

The Cisco Catalyst 9500 is Cisco's fixed-core and aggregation line in the Catalyst 9000 family, and this page covers the three models that are realistically available on the secondary market: the C9500-16X, the C9500-24Q and the C9500-40X. They are all one rack unit tall, they all take two power supplies, and they differ in the one thing a design actually chooses between, which is how many ports there are and how fast each one runs.

Everything commercial about this family follows from a pair of Cisco dates rather than from a price. Cisco has stopped taking orders for all three of these switches and continues to support them for years yet, which means the hardware comes from the secondary market and the platform behind it is still maintained. That combination is unusual, it is published by Cisco rather than asserted here, and it is the reason this family is worth buying used.

What Cisco has stopped selling, and what Cisco still supports

Cisco published two end-of-life notices covering these switches, and they carry different dates. Reading the right one for the model in front of you is the single most useful thing this page can help with, because a two-year difference in the support horizon changes which switch belongs in a design.

Those two milestones are different things and neither one means much alone. The last day to order is the date after which Cisco will not sell the switch at all, which is why these models are only available second-hand. The last day of support is the date Cisco's obligation to the platform ends, and it is the one a design has to fit inside. The gap between them, five years on one notice and five on the other, is the window this family is bought in.

Cisco's page for EOL15039 renders with an amended marker on its title. That is the current version of the notice rather than a superseded one, and the dates above are the ones it publishes. EOL15621 carries no such marker. Both notice numbers are worth writing down, because they are what turns a date on a supplier's website into something a buyer can check at source.

Choosing between the 16X, the 24Q and the 40X

The decision is port speed against port count, with the support horizon as a tie-breaker. The C9500-40X gives the most 10G ports, the C9500-24Q gives fewer but much faster ones, and the C9500-16X gives the smallest 10G count with the longest support life and the fullest published specification.

Two of the three take uplink modules. Cisco supports the C9500-NM-8X, an eight-port 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet module on SFP and SFP+, and the C9500-NM-2Q, a two-port 40 Gigabit Ethernet module on QSFP+, on the C9500-16X and the C9500-40X. The C9500-24Q takes neither, because all twenty-four of its ports are already fixed at 40 Gigabit Ethernet on QSFP+ and Cisco names no network module for it. A module ordered against a 24Q is an ordering mistake rather than an upgrade.

What separates the 16X from the other two is not the module path, which it shares with the 40X. It is the lifecycle: Cisco supports the 16X two years further out than either of its siblings, and the notice that covers it covers both of its uplink modules on the same two dates, so a chassis planned with a module is planned around one set of dates rather than three. That is the argument for the smallest switch on this page, and it has nothing to do with port count.

What Cisco does not publish about the 24Q and the 40X

Three figures were withdrawn when the C9500-12Q, C9500-24Q and C9500-40X reached end-of-sale and Cisco removed them from the live data sheet: switching capacity, the ASIC specification, and the forwarding rate in packets per second. This site does not state any of the three for those models, does not estimate them, and does not reproduce a number from a cached copy of an older data sheet.

The claim stops exactly there, and it is worth being precise about why. Cisco has not stopped publishing information about these switches. The part numbers still appear on Cisco's own pages, throughout the hardware installation guide, in the scale template table and in the end-of-life notice, and that is where the port media, the rack height, the weight, the power supply and fan parts, the airflow direction and the address and route scale figures come from. Three figures went. Everything else is still there, and a buyer who checks Cisco will find it, which is the only reason a section like this is worth writing.

Network stack license levels

Software licenses and subscriptions are not included unless the listing states otherwise. Cisco sells the Catalyst 9500 in two network stack levels - Network Essentials and Network Advantage - and the level is recorded in the part number rather than being a cosmetic suffix. On this platform the difference is functional rather than cosmetic: Cisco lists StackWise Virtual as a Network Advantage feature and not a Network Essentials one. Tell us which level your network needs before you order and we will confirm, in writing, what the specific unit we are shipping carries.

Buying a switch Cisco no longer sells

The refurbished case on this family is unusually simple to state. Cisco will not sell you any of these three switches. Cisco will still support all three of them, to 30 April 2029 under EOL15039 or to 30 April 2031 under EOL15621. The secondary market is therefore not the cheap route to the hardware, it is the route, and the question a buyer is really answering is whether the platform suits the design rather than whether used hardware is acceptable.

Whole systems, switches included, carry a 2-year Enterasource warranty, and shipping is free FedEx Ground to the lower 48 states. Every unit is tested on arrival, stripped, cleaned and booked in, then rebuilt, configured and tested again on the way out against a specific order. No Cisco entitlement is claimed to transfer with a used switch. The rest of the range sits on the Cisco switches page, and the wider Cisco switching and routing catalogue covers the neighbouring families.

Common questions

Is the Cisco Catalyst 9500 end of life?

The three models on this page have published end-of-life notices, and the dates differ between them. Cisco's notice EOL15039 covers the C9500-12Q, C9500-24Q and C9500-40X, giving 30 April 2024 as the last day to order and 30 April 2029 as the last day of support. Cisco's notice EOL15621 covers the C9500-16X together with both of its uplink modules, giving 30 April 2026 and 30 April 2031. The last day to order and the last day of support are different milestones, and only the second one constrains a design.

How long will Cisco support a Catalyst 9500?

Until 30 April 2029 for the C9500-24Q and the C9500-40X, published in Cisco's end-of-life notice EOL15039, and until 30 April 2031 for the C9500-16X, published in notice EOL15621. Those are Cisco's own last-day-of-support dates rather than an estimate made here, and the notice numbers are given so they can be checked at source. The two-year difference between the notices is the practical reason to prefer the 16X where port count allows it.

What is the difference between a C9500-16X, a C9500-24Q and a C9500-40X?

Port count and port speed first. The C9500-16X has 16 ports of 10 GbE on SFP and SFP+, the C9500-40X has 40 ports of the same, and the C9500-24Q has 24 ports running at 40 GbE on QSFP+. The 16X and the 40X accept an uplink module on top of their fixed ports; the 24Q's ports are all fixed. Lifecycle is the third difference: the 16X sits on notice EOL15621 and the other two on EOL15039, with two years between their support dates.

Which Catalyst 9500 models take uplink modules?

Two of the three models take uplink modules: the C9500-16X and the C9500-40X. Cisco supports the C9500-NM-8X, an eight-port 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet module on SFP/SFP+, and the C9500-NM-2Q, a two-port 40 Gigabit Ethernet module on QSFP+, on both of those switches. The C9500-24Q takes neither module. All twenty-four of its ports are fixed 40 Gigabit Ethernet on QSFP+, and Cisco names no network module for it.

What is the switching capacity of a C9500-40X?

Cisco does not publish one for this model. The 12Q, 24Q and 40X were removed from the live Catalyst 9500 data sheet after they reached end-of-sale, so there is no figure to quote and none is offered here in place of one. A 480 Gbps number is sometimes attached to this model by third parties; it belongs to the C9500-16X, which is a smaller switch with sixteen ports. What Cisco did keep publishing for the withdrawn models is the scale side of the specification, including 64,000 MAC addresses and 64,000 IPv4 longest-prefix-match routes on the default template.

Do refurbished Catalyst 9500 switches come with a Cisco license?

Not unless the listing says so. On this family the level is worth settling before ordering rather than after, because it is functional rather than decorative: Cisco lists StackWise Virtual, which runs two chassis as a single logical switch, as a Network Advantage capability and not a Network Essentials one. So the level recorded in the part number decides whether a pair of these switches can be run as one at all. Tell us which level the design assumes and we will confirm in writing what the specific unit being shipped carries.