Aruba CX8400 Switch Series
Modular, intelligent, and highly resilient

Overview:

The past several decades in networking have been defined by static, closed networking solutions designed for the clientserver era. The Aruba CX 8400 campus core and aggregation switch is a game-changing solution offering a flexible and innovative approach to dealing with the new application, security and scalability demands of the mobile-cloud and IoT era. The Aruba CX 8400 also serves as a data center switch in either a core/aggregation or a leaf/spine topology.

The 8400 provides carrier class high availability with industry-leading line rate 10GbE/25GbE/40GbE/100GbE connectivity in a compact 8 slot chassis. It provides up to 19.2 Tbps of switching capacity based on a fully resilient design that includes redundant fabric, management, power and fans to create a resilient, highly available network that is ideal for the most demanding campus core and data center networks.

Key Features

• High performance 19.2 terabits per second switching (1.2Tbps/slot) capacity
• Carrier-class high availability with Aruba Virtual Switching Extension (VSX), redundant management, power, and fabric
• ArubaOS-CX enables automation and programmability using built-in REST APIs and Python scripts
• Intelligent monitoring and visibility with Aruba Network Analytics Engine
• Dynamic VXLAN with BGP-EVPN for deep segmentation in data center and campus networks
• One touch deployment with the Aruba CX Mobile App
• Aruba NetEdit support for automated configuration and verification
• Advanced Layer 2/3 feature set includes BGP, OSPF, VRF, and IPv6
• Compact 8U chassis with high density, line rate 10GbE/40GbE/100GbE connectivity

Benefits

The Aruba CX 8400 provides the ultimate in modular design and flexibility to address the emerging application, security, and scalability demands of the mobile, cloud, and IoT enterprise.

Product Differentiators

ArubaOS-CX

• Easy access to all network state information allows unique visibility and analytics
• REST APIs and Python scripting for fine-grained programmability of network task
• A micro-services architecture that enables full integration with other workflow systems and services
• Continual state synchronization that provides superior fault tolerance and high availability
• All software processes communicate with the database rather than each other, ensuring near real-time state and resiliency and allowing individual software modules to be independently upgraded for higher availability

Aruba Network Analytics Engine - advanced monitoring and diagnostics - For enhanced visibility and troubleshooting

Aruba NetEdit - automated switch configuration and management

• Centralized configuration with validation for consistency and compliance
• Time savings via simultaneous viewing and editing of multiple configurations
• Customized validation tests for corporate compliance and network design
• Automated large-scale configuration deployment without programming
• Network health and topology visibility with Aruba NAE integration

Aruba CX Mobile App - unparalleled deployment convenience

Aruba Virtual Switching Extension (VSX)

• Continuous configuration synchronization via AOS-CX
• Flexible active-active network designs at Layers 2 and 3
• Operational simplicity and usability for easy configuration
• High availability by design during upgrades including support for VSX Live Upgrade with LACP traffic draining

Performance

• High-speed fully distributed architecture
  Provides up to 19.2 Tbps switching capacity with up to 7.142 billion packets per second (BPPS) for throughput; all switching and routing is performed in the line modules; meets the demands of bandwidth-intensive applications today and in the future
• Scalable system design
  Provides investment protection to support future technologies and higher-speed connectivity

Connectivity

• High-density port connectivity
  Supports up to 8 line modules; a 32-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet with MACsec in hardware (not software), an 8-port 40 Gigabit Ethernet, and a 6-port 40/100 Gigabit Ethernet module.
• Jumbo frames
  Allows high-performance backups and disaster-recovery systems; provides a maximum frame size of 9K bytes
• Packet storm protection
  Protects against unknown broadcast, unknown multicast, or unicast storms with user-defined thresholds

Quality of Service (QoS)

• Data Center Bridging (DCB)
  Supports lossless Ethernet networking standard Priority Flow Control (PFC), Enhanced Transmission Service (ETS) and DCB Exchange Protocol (DCBX) to eliminate packet loss due to queue overflow
• Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)
  Mark packets rather than drop them, enabling the receiver to indicate the congestion to the sender, which in turn can reduce its transmission rate as if it detected a dropped packet.

Resiliency and high availability

Virtual private network (VPN)

• Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE)
  Enables tunneling traffic from site to site over a Layer 3 path

Management

• Management interface control
• IPSLA
• Industry-standard CLI with a hierarchical structure
• Management security
• SNMP v2c/v3
• sFlow® (RFC 3176)
• Remote monitoring (RMON)
• TFTP and SFTP support
• Debug and sampler utility
• Network Time Protocol (NTP)
• IEEE 802.1AB Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)
• Dual flash images

Layer 2 switching

• VLAN
• Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU) tunneling
  Transmits STP BPDUs transparently, allowing correct tree calculations across service providers, WANs, or MANs
• Port mirroring
  Duplicates port traffic (ingress and egress) to a local or remote monitoring port; supports 4 mirroring groups, with an unlimited number of ports per group
• STP
  Supports standard IEEE 802.1D STP, IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) for faster convergence, and IEEE 802.1s Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP)
• Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP)
  Controls and manages the flooding of multicast packets in a Layer 2 network
• Rapid Per-VLAN spanning tree plus (RPVST+)
  Allows each VLAN to build a separate spanning tree to improve link bandwidth usage in network environments with multiple VLANs

Layer 3 services

Layer 3 routing

Security

• TAA Compliance
  The Aruba 8400, a TAA compliant product, with the ArubaOS-CX uses FIPS 140-2 validated cryptography for protection of sensitive information
• Access control list (ACL)
  Supports powerful ACLs for both IPv4 and IPv6; ACLs are used for filtering traffic to prevent unauthorised users from accessing the network, or for controlling network traffic to save resources; rules can either deny or permit traffic to be forwarded; rules can be based on a Layer 2 header or a Layer 3 protocol header
• Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS)
  Eases security access administration by using a password authentication server
• Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System (TACACS+)
  Delivers an authentication tool using TCP with encryption of the full authentication request, providing additional security
• Management access security
  Aruba OS CX provides for both on-box as well as off- box authentication for administrative access. RADIUS or TACACS+ can be used to provide encrypted user authentication. Additionally, TACACS+ can also provide user authorization services
• Secure shell (SSHv2)
  Uses external servers to securely log in to a remote device; with authentication and encryption, it protects against IP spoofing and plain-text password interception; increases the security of Secure FTP (SFTP) transfers

Multicast

Additional information

• Green initiative support
  Provides support for RoHS and WEEE regulations

Warranty and support

• 5-year Warranty