Cisco C9300X-12Y-A Switch

The Cisco Catalyst C9300X-12Y-A has 12 25G SFP28 fiber access ports, intended for high-speed fiber aggregation rather than copper endpoint connectivity. Because they are fiber SFP28 ports, they carry no Power over Ethernet and cannot power wireless access points, IP phones, or IP cameras. For copper multigigabit access, the C9300X-48TX is the data model and the C9300X-48HX adds UPOE+.

The C9300X-12Y-A has 12 SFP28 access ports that run at 25G and also accept 10G and 1G optics, plus a modular uplink slot that scales to 100G. Specific transceiver compatibility should be verified against the manufacturer's transceiver compatibility matrix at tmgmatrix.cisco.com. Transceivers are sold separately.

The C9300X-12Y-A supports Cisco StackWise-1T data stacking of up to eight members at 1 Tbps of stack bandwidth, plus Cisco StackPower+ for shared power across the stack. It can also stack with modular Catalyst 9300 switches, in which case the data stack runs at the lower StackWise-480 speed. StackWise and StackPower cables are ordered separately.

The two switches are the same 25G SFP28 fiber platform, license tier, and stacking, and differ in fiber-port count and throughput. The 12Y-A has 12 25G ports with 1,000 Gbps of switching capacity and a 744.04 Mpps forwarding rate. The 24Y-A has 24 25G ports with 2,000 Gbps of switching capacity and a 1488 Mpps forwarding rate. Choose the 24Y for denser 25G fiber aggregation.

The two switches are identical hardware and differ only in license tier. The -E model ships with perpetual Network Essentials, which covers Layer 2 plus basic routed access such as static routing, RIP, EIGRP stub, OSPF for up to 1,000 routes, PBR, PIM stub multicast, and VRRP. The -A model ships with perpetual Network Advantage, which adds full OSPF, EIGRP, BGP, IS-IS, HSRP, VRF, VXLAN, LISP, and SGT segmentation. SD-Access and 100G IPsec (with an HSEC key) are enabled separately from the perpetual tier.

No. The switch runs on its included perpetual base license indefinitely. Under Cisco's ordering model, new switch orders include a term-based Cisco DNA or Cisco Catalyst software subscription of the same tier as the network license; that subscription unlocks Cisco Catalyst Center and cloud-managed features. When the subscription term ends, the switch continues operating on the perpetual base license capabilities after a reload.

Yes. Cisco's migration guidance positions the Catalyst 9300X as a successor to the end-of-sale Catalyst 3850. Migrating to the C9300X-12Y-A moves the aggregation layer to Cisco IOS XE, StackWise-1T stacking, 25G fiber ports, and 100G-capable uplinks with the Network Advantage feature set.

Network Devices Inc. sells the C9300X-12Y-A as current, new, factory-sealed stock. Cisco publishes End-of-Sale and End-of-Life status for every Catalyst 9300 Series part number on its official End-of-Life and End-of-Sale Notices page for the series, which is the authoritative source for a specific SKU. Buyers standardizing on a platform for a multi-year refresh should confirm the current status there before ordering.

The C9300X-12Y-A is sold new and factory-sealed. It is covered by a Network Devices Inc. one-year warranty and a 30-day return policy.