HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H Switch Series FAQs
CONFIDENTIAL | AUTHORIZED HPE PARTNER USE ONLY
HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H
Switch Series
Frequently Asked Questions – Version 2.0 October 2024
HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H Switch Series FAQs
CONFIDENTIAL | AUTHORIZED HPE PARTNER USE ONLY Page 1
Contents
Product Timelines ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 1
Product Positioning ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Product Parity .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 2
Product Hardware Support ......................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Product Software Support ........................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Product Pricing and Resources .................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Product Timelines
• When will the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H be available?
̶ Select Availability Quotable – Dec 3, 2024
̶ General Availability (Orderable but not shipping) - Jan 13, 2025
̶ FCS is planned for March 3, 2025
• When will the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H be configurable in IRIS?
̶ The team is currently tracking to have it in IRIS on January 13th, 2025
• What product trainings will be available and when?
̶ UTH planned date - TBD
̶ Hardware NPI Training - TBD
• When will be the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H Supported in HPE Aruba Networking Central?
̶ Legacy Central: FCS in March
̶ Next Generation Central: FCS in March
Product Positioning
• What is the new CX 8325H switch and what are the key use cases?
̶ The HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H switch series are designed to provide high-performance, high density 1/10/25/40/100G
connectivity with fixed, redundant power and cooling in a half-width, single RU form factor, while meeting the requirements of
a wide array of compute and storage, HCI networking use cases.
̶ ASIC switching capacity of 2.16Tbps (full-duplex) with 18 ports of 1/10/25 and 4 ports of 40/100G and ASIC switching capacity
of 4Tbps (full-duplex) with 16 ports of 40/100G. Provides a solution for small designs where redundancy is provided in a single
RU by placing 2 units side by side.
̶ These switches are ideal for smaller, edge or colocation data centers that require limited port density and/or have limited rack
space, but still require redundancy.
̶ The HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H can be used in small campus and branch locations where space is at a premium (e.g.,
retail locations, healthcare facilities, media, financial and enterprise branches) and don’t always have IT racks, but often have
storage closets being used to store servers and IT equipment).
• What models of the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H are available?
HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H Switch Series FAQs
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̶ The HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H switch series has two models, the CX 8325H-18Y4C, and CX 8325H-16C. The HPE Aruba
Networking CX 8325H-18Y4C is designed to support any combination of 1/10/25G interfaces on its 18 ports – no port grouping
necessary. The 4 ports of 100G can be split using breakout cabling depending on your needs. The HPE Aruba Networking CX
8325H-16C allows for different ports speeds with breakout cabling. This makes splitting a single 100GbE in 4x25GbE possible.
18 (25G) and 4 (100G) ports 16 (100G max)
2.16Tb/s Switching BW (FD) 4Tb/s Switching BW (FD)
✓ Half-width, single RU form factor, 1/10/25/40/100G connectivity
✓ Full Layer 3, EVPN-VXLAN, BGP, OSPF, multicast
✓ Low-latency and “lossless” network QoS required storage networks
✓ Flexible 1/10G telemetry port
✓ Fixed, redundant power and cooling (N+1)
✓ 32 GB memory, 128 SSD, 32 MB packet buffer, AMD x86 8 Core CPU
Cost-effective, right sized 10/25/100G connectivity for various use cases
Ethernet Storage Fabric, SDS and DAS (MSA 2060), Hyperconverged infrastructure –
Enterprise edge locations, campuses, colocations and small sites
• Will the HPE Storage sales team also be selling this switch?
̶ Yes – both the HPE Aruba Networking and HPE Storage sales team will be selling this switch with separate sales motions,
customer bases and product SKUs. All Storage SKUs will be fully TAA compliant versions to insure they can support
governmental or corporate restrictions on countries of origin. The Storage team will focus their efforts primarily on attaching
our CX Ethernet switches to HPE storage array opportunities such as HPE Alletra Storage arrays.
̶ The HPE Aruba Networking sellers will focus on more general-purpose data center colocation, edge and campus
1/10/25/40/100G connectivity use cases, many of which include storage use cases, but also have broader end-end L2/3
network and security connectivity requirements. These switches are ideal for smaller, edge or colocation data centers that
require limited port density and/or have limited rack space, but still require redundancy.
• Isn’t Fibre Channel the preferred networking option for Storage??
̶ In a centralized storage model, SANs were almost solely Fibre Channel. In a distributed storage model, the modern SAN is now
Fibre Channel and Ethernet. Much faster raw speeds, new lossless configuration capabilities, cost efficiency, scalability, and
networking administrator familiarity make Ethernet a viable alternative.
̶ The HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H Switch Series enables low-latency and “lossless” network QoS and connectivity
characteristics that storage requires – making it an ideal switch for software-defined storage and HCI solutions, where multiple
servers share captive (SSD/flash-based) storage [Link] smaller, edge or colocation data centers that require limited port
density and/or have limited rack space, but still require redundancy.
Product Parity
• Does the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H share the same features and functions of our existing HPE Aruba Networking CX
8325 series?
̶ Yes - the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H leverages the same high-performance ASIC and fully featured operating system that
the full-width CX 8325 provides. This AOS-CX operating system provides a modern, database-driven OS that automates and
simplifies critical and complex network tasks. AOS-CX provides an advanced Layer 2/3 feature set including BGP, OSPF, VRF-
Lite, IPv6, dynamic VXLAN and intelligent monitoring, visibility, and remediation with a network analytics engine.
HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H Switch Series FAQs
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̶ The switch can be managed with HPE Aruba Networking Central, our cloud-based network management solution, or on-
premises with HPE Aruba Networking Fabric Composer, NetConductor or CLI based management.
• How does this switch compare to the NVIDIA (Mellanox Spectrum SN2xxx half-width switches) – or what HPE OEMs from
NVIDIA called the M-Series?
̶ The NVIDIA (Mellanox) SN2010 and SN2100 are the main competition for the 8325H. These switches (form factors) are
comparable, but the CX 8325H is a more capable and feature-rich solution (single OS, seamless SFM integration, more features
and capabilities in the same factor). The Mellanox SN2xxx (aka HPE M-Series variant) is planned to stop selling in 2025. This
means that the CX 8325H will soon be the only half-width Ethernet switch available from HPE.
• What opportunities are available?
̶ Dell supports a similar device for the 8325H 18Y 4C but with fewer ports. This makes the Dell version less optimal for solution
designs. Dell S5212F-ON - 12xSFP28 (10/25G), 3xQSFP28 (40/100G)
̶ Cisco does not have an equivalent form factor
̶ For additional information regarding NVIDIA Mellanox EOL:
[Link]
CX 8325H CX 8360 CX 8325 SN2xxx
Core use case SME, Edge Campus/DC DC/Agg SME, Storage
Power/Fans Fixed Hot Swap Hot Swap Fixed
Port Density 16-18P 12-48P 24-32P 16-18P
Form Factor Half-width Full width Full width Half-width
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R&D investment Yes Yes Yes EOL 2025
Storage Certified Yes No Yes Yes
Space, power, cost ***** **** *** *****
̶ The CX 8325H is priced closer to the CX 8360 MSRP (but offers the advanced performance and storage optimization features of
the CX 8325). The CX 8325H reduced form factor also saves on space and power which provides overall lower TCO over the
duration of the switch’s deployment.
̶ PURPOSE OF THE TABLE ABOVE IS TO POSITION BOTH WITH OUR 8000 SERIES AND WITH M-SERIES.
• In addition to a lower MSRP, what TCO points can we reinforce with customers?
̶ The HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H switch helps organizations balance density, high availability, and orderability by
conserving precious rack space and costs when deploying server, storage and HCI solutions.
̶ Designed to use less electric power than competing switches, the CX 8325H provides one of the industry’s lowest power draws,
producing less heat than competing products and helping to reduce OpEx costs.
̶ The HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H switch supports 1/10/25/40/100GbE speeds providing significant flexibility for customer
use applications.
Product Hardware Support
• Will there be TAA Compliant SKUs?
̶ Yes, the list of TAA compliant SKUs will be shared soon.
• Do the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H switches support cut-through switching?
̶ The HPE Aruba Networking 8325H supports cut-through or store and forward.
• Do the HPE Aruba Networking 8325H switches come with rack mounting hardware?
̶ The rack mounting hardware must be ordered separately and the switch requires either a 2 Post (S2T44A) Rack mount Kit
(brackets Included) or a 4 Post (S2T43A) Rack Mount Kit (Brackets ordered separately - J9583B).
• What are the telemetry ports used for, and can they be used as regular switch ports as well?
̶ The telemetry ports can be used for general purposes including sending telemetry information to a management system,
connectivity to servers or for VSX heartbeat. The telemetry ports can be used for anything using 1/10G and it does not provide
any data, it is just a port.
• Is 50G Ports supported by HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H?
̶ No, the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H does not support 50G.
Product Software Support
• What is the minimum CX software release that supports the new HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H switches?
̶ 10.15.1000
Product Pricing and Resources
• What is the expected pricing for the HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H?
̶ CX 8325-18Y4C:
▫ NTE $29, 911 (Non-TAA)
HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H Switch Series FAQs
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▫ NTE $31,407 (TAA)
̶ CX 8325-16C:
▫ NTE $32,876 (Non-TAA)
▫ NTE $34,520 (TAA)
• Where can I find more information about HPE Aruba Networking CX 8325H Switch Series?
̶ Internal: [Link]
̶ External: AAG - [Link]
