Cisco, which employs about 2,000 people in Richardson according to the city's 2024 annual financial report, is now offering mounting trays that let its Nexus 9000 data center switches fit into Open Rack Version 3 cabinets, a rack design built for the power and cooling needs of AI servers. The company described the trays in an Oct. 5 post on its data center blog.
Open Rack Version 3, or ORv3, is a specification from the Open Compute Project, an industry group that publishes open hardware designs. ORv3 racks hold 21-inch-wide equipment measured in "open units" of 48 millimeters, while most corporate data centers use 19-inch racks measured in rack units of 44.45 millimeters. ORv3 racks also deliver 48-volt DC power through a shared busbar, which the blog says can reduce power loss and supports direct liquid cooling.
What Cisco is selling
According to the post, the trays:
- let N9000 Series switches sit in ORv3 racks and run on their 48-volt DC power systems
- connect at different busbar positions so the switch receives adequate power in the rack setups Cisco supports
- come with mounting kits so older 19-inch equipment can be installed in the wider ORv3 frame