C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A Cisco Catalyst 9300 48-Port UPoE GE Network Switch

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series L3 Switching 

The Cisco C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A belongs to the widely adopted Catalyst 9300 Series, a platform engineered for secure, high-performance enterprise switching. This category emphasizes advanced Layer 3 routing intelligence, scalable hardware architecture, optimized forwarding performance, and dependable enterprise resilience. The C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A model specifically illustrates the broader strengths of the 9300 family, representing a solution that integrates unified access, multi-gigabit connectivity, distributed high-bandwidth switching, and full-stack security features. The category is characterized by flexible uplink modules, hot-swappable components, modular power support, and resilient software operations, enabling dependable uptime across branch offices, campus networks, and data-heavy deployment environments.

Switches in this family are engineered to manage sustained traffic loads across enterprise cores and distribution layers. Their design supports wired and wireless convergence, integrated analytics, and enhanced telemetry to provide granular visibility into network behavior. Every model within this category, including the C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A, is built upon Cisco’s Unified Access Data Plane technology that improves packet handling precision while reducing latency. Its ability to host applications directly on the switch elevates this category into a scalable platform rather than a conventional hardware-only switching device.

48-Port UPoE Functionality and Multi-Gigabit Design Principles

The 48-port configuration within the Cisco C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A highlights the category’s commitment to dense port availability alongside high-power delivery capabilities. Unified Power over Ethernet extends support for connected devices that require robust energy levels, such as advanced wireless access points, high-resolution surveillance hardware, smart building controllers, and security endpoints. This category supports intelligent power allocation, allowing the platform to assess, assign, and monitor energy consumption across all connected devices in real time.

The multi-gigabit configuration strengthens the switch’s utility in modern network settings where devices demand more throughput than conventional gigabit connections. Within this category, UPoE ports are designed to carry increased bandwidth and additional power without the need for infrastructure overhauls. This hardware class is optimized for environments migrating to Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E technologies, as these standards often necessitate higher than gigabit speeds for connected wireless radios. The multi-gigabit ports can sustain evolving traffic patterns, ensuring forward compatibility with next-generation client needs.

Advanced Energy Delivery and UPoE Innovations

Enhanced energy output is central to the 9300 UPoE category philosophy. This switch family delivers up to 60W of power per port, expanding deployment capabilities for power-hungry devices. This eliminates the need for external power adapters and reduces infrastructure complexity. Cisco’s intelligent power management mechanisms ensure consistent delivery while protecting hardware from overdraw risks. The platform’s energy analytics also offer detailed reporting, giving administrators insight into consumption patterns across high-density deployment environments.

Multi-Gigabit Ethernet and Network Efficiency Enhancements

The multi-gigabit elements embedded into the C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A exemplify the series' capacity to adapt to bandwidth-heavy applications. This technology allows the switch to automatically prepare for various link speeds depending on the connected device capabilities. This category is essential for organizations integrating new wired and wireless systems that benefit from link speeds exceeding gigabit thresholds. By offering a multi-speed ecosystem, enterprises prevent bottlenecks and improve application responsiveness across the board.

Layer 3 Managed Enterprise Networking Capabilities

Layer 3 switching capabilities represent a defining characteristic of the Cisco Catalyst 9300 category. This includes high-performance routing protocols, dynamic path selection, advanced traffic segmentation, and optimized inter-VLAN routing. The Cisco C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A model highlights the category’s routing strengths by delivering accelerated forwarding capabilities that reduce latency in enterprise communication streams. Hardware-accelerated routing ensures responsiveness for large-volume traffic flows while maintaining minimal jitter, crucial for real-time applications such as voice, video, and application hosting.

Switches within this category are equipped with a rich suite of L3 features including policy-based routing, static routing, OSPF, EIGRP, BGP lite, VRF-Lite, and advanced filtering operations. The platform architecture is designed to prioritize traffic based on dynamic network conditions, ensuring efficient utilization of available bandwidth. With floating static routes, equal-cost multipathing, and flexible forwarding optimizations, this category remains reliable even under substantial load conditions.

Inter-VLAN Communication and High-Speed Data Transport

This category elevates inter-VLAN communication by leveraging hardware-based routing components that improve forwarding precision and minimize delays. As a result, campus networks dependent on VLAN segmentation gain accelerated internal data mobility. The ability to route in hardware rather than software reduces CPU workload, enabling the platform to maintain efficiency under heavy data transfer conditions.

4x 25G Uplink Ports and Bandwidth Consolidation

The switch integrates four 25 Gigabit uplink ports that align with enterprise-grade network designs needing substantial bandwidth on the aggregation plane. These uplinks provide consistent performance for data-intensive operations like server communication, virtualization platform connectivity, cloud application access, and large backup activities. This category emphasizes reliability and bandwidth consolidation, ensuring uplinks remain free of congestion when multiple access-layer switches depend on simultaneous high-throughput data flows.

Fiber-Ready Architecture for Modern Campus Networks

The uplink architecture fits the needs of organizations expanding fiber connectivity in campus or branch ecosystems. Optical uplinks reduce signal degradation and provide stable throughput across significant distances. This enhances network scalability by allowing administrators to place access switches in diverse physical locations while maintaining centralized control and unified performance.

Security Enhancements Across Catalyst 9300 Enterprise Switching

The switch category offers comprehensive security features to safeguard enterprise environments. Cisco’s security stack includes advanced threat detection, encryption capabilities, trust mechanisms, and authenticated device onboarding. This category integrates hardware and software protections that work cohesively to strengthen defenses against unauthorized access and harmful traffic anomalies. The C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A utilizes encrypted traffic analytics to detect malware signatures without requiring decryption of the content itself, preserving privacy while ensuring security.

Encrypted Traffic Analytics and Behavioral Insights

Encrypted Traffic Analytics integrates deep network telemetry with machine learning-based detection. This allows the switch to identify patterns linked to security threats hidden inside encrypted channels. The category ensures minimal performance impact even while analyzing traffic across hundreds of active clients. Administrators gain visibility into encrypted flows and potential anomalies without violating encryption standards or compromising user confidentiality.

Software-Defined Access Integration

The category supports Cisco’s Software-Defined Access architecture, a solution designed to simplify policy enforcement and automate network segmentation. The ability to seamlessly integrate identity-based segmentation enables enterprises to define user or device access rules at a granular level. This results in more consistent policy application across campus and branch deployments. Enhanced automation also reduces manual configuration errors, improving operational efficiency and IT agility.

Performance Optimization and Hardware-Accelerated Switching

Performance optimization forms a central part of this switch category. The hardware forwarding engine allows the switch to manage intense throughput demands with minimal latency. Enterprise environments that rely on high-volume application traffic benefit from the category’s emphasis on forwarding efficiency. The architecture employs dedicated hardware resources to maintain consistent performance even while executing Layer 3 operations, policy enforcement, and telemetry processing.

High-Bandwidth Data Plane and Robust Packet Routing

The Catalyst 9300 data plane utilizes advanced silicon to ensure transitions between network segments remain efficient and uninterrupted. This category is engineered for multi-gigabit internal throughput, giving organizations flexible scalability. With large forwarding capacity and high availability features, packet routing remains stable regardless of the number of connected devices or application workloads running across the enterprise network.

Optimized Buffer Management and Application Responsiveness

Optimized buffer management techniques within this category help prevent packet loss during traffic bursts. Applications that rely heavily on synchronized data exchange, such as interactive communication tools, file distribution systems, or real-time collaboration platforms, maintain smooth performance even during periods of demand fluctuation. The advanced queuing features enable administrators to assign traffic prioritization policies that support mission-critical application flow.

Stacking Architecture and High-Availability Redundancy

The Catalyst 9300 Series category emphasizes modular stacking capabilities through Cisco StackWise technology. This allows multiple switches to operate as a unified system, simplifying management and improving failover recovery. High-availability architecture assures minimal downtime and uninterrupted access to mission-critical resources. The C9300LM-48UX-4Y-A model integrates seamlessly into StackWise environments, offering consistent performance across integrated platforms.

High-Availability Capabilities and Failover Efficiency

The category embodies high-availability practices that allow network continuity even in unexpected hardware or link failures. Redundant power options, hot-swappable components, and intelligent failover mechanisms reduce the risk of prolonged service outages. Enterprises dependent on continuous uptime benefit significantly from these design elements, ensuring dependable user connectivity and secure access to business resources around the clock.

Application Hosting and Edge Processing Capabilities

The category supports hosting containerized applications directly on the switch, allowing edge computing functions to run locally. This reduces dependency on external systems and helps accelerate response times for specific services. Application hosting further enhances network programmability, enabling organizations to build custom automation tools or security monitoring agents that operate directly at the switching layer.

Unified Connectivity for IoT Deployments

The category supports multiple network architectures designed around organizational IoT needs. Intelligent segmentation allows IoT devices to remain isolated from critical data networks while still benefiting from centralized management. The switch category’s resilience ensures continuous monitoring and reliable transmission of IoT-generated data.

High-Power PoE Technologies for Smart Infrastructure

Smart infrastructure deployments rely heavily on energy distributed through networking equipment. The category’s UPoE capabilities offer enough output to power advanced IoT hardware such as smart cameras and building management systems. This reduces cable clutter, simplifies deployment, and enhances operational sustainability across modern enterprise buildings.

Energy-Aware Software and Automated Consumption Control

Energy-aware features within this category help optimize power utilization across connected endpoints. Administrators can schedule power cycles, enforce energy policies, and monitor consumption analytics through Cisco’s software interface. This leads to more controlled and predictable energy usage within enterprise networks.

Expanding Connectivity Through Modular Architecture

Modular architecture remains a pillar of the Catalyst 9300 category. Replaceable uplink modules, stackable components, and flexible interface options offer expansion pathways to support long-term growth. The category is particularly effective in network modernization projects where staged scalability is necessary.

Future-Proofing Enterprise Infrastructure

The switch category incorporates advancements designed to future-proof enterprise infrastructure for next-generation devices and applications. Extensive throughput headroom and adaptable port-speed capabilities offer assurance that the platform can sustain increased data loads. This ensures that organizations remain competitive as digital ecosystems continue to expand.

Cloud-Driven Control and Simplified Network Operations

Cloud-based management offers insight into device health, traffic patterns, configuration states, and policy compliance. The category’s integration with cloud controllers helps simplify updates, streamline troubleshooting, and provide on-demand telemetry for operational decision-making.