A breakdown of Cisco ACI pricing-It contains software licensing, hardware costs, and bundles for starters and Catalyst 6500 upgrades.
This week, Cisco 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. The key piece of Cisco’s ACI strategy will ship July 31, along with new ACI starter kits.
Note: The Cisco ACI fabric consists of three major components:
- Cisco Application Policy Infrastructure Controller (APIC)
- Spine switches
- 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 |
Reference Reviews from https://www.networkworld.com/article/2459441/cisco-subnet/a-breakdown-of-cisco-aci-pricing.html
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