Nexus 3064-T EoL: Migrate to Nexus 93108TC-FX3

If you still have Cisco Nexus 3064-T switches (PID N3K-C3064TQ-10GT) racked at the top of your server rows, they are now well past every Cisco lifecycle milestone that matters. The 3064-T went End of Sale on June 7, 2016 and reached its Last Day of Support on June 30, 2021. From that date forward Cisco provides no NX-OS software fixes, no PSIRT security patches, and no TAC support or RMA hardware replacement for this platform. The switch still forwards packets at line rate, which is precisely why these units quietly survive in production long after they should have been retired. This guide explains what the end-of-life dates actually mean for a live fabric, why the recommended Nexus 93108TC-FX3 is a genuine generational upgrade rather than a like-for-like swap, and how to plan a clean refresh.

3064-T lifecycle at a glance: End of Sale: June 7, 2016. Last Day of Support (LDoS): June 30, 2021. Both dates have now passed by years. The full milestone record lives on the EoL detail page for this PID.

What the Nexus 3064-T actually was

The Nexus 3064-T (N3K-C3064TQ-10GT) was the 10GBASE-T copper variant of the original Nexus 3064 line — a compact 1RU top-of-rack switch built for low-latency server access over twisted pair. It delivered 48 RJ45 ports running 100M/1G/10GBASE-T, plus four QSFP+ ports for 40G uplinks (each breakable into 4x10G), for a non-blocking switching capacity around 1.28 Tbps with cut-through latency in the low microseconds. Built on a Broadcom Trident+ class ASIC and running NX-OS in standalone mode, it was a popular choice for connecting 10GBASE-T server NICs in rows where structured copper was already pulled and re-cabling to fiber was unattractive. For 2012-era data center access it was an excellent, dense copper ToR. By today's standards its uplinks, buffers, encryption, and telemetry are a generation behind.

Why acting now matters

The dangerous thing about an end-of-life switch is not that it stops working. It is that it keeps working flawlessly while the support floor disappears beneath it. After LDoS, three concrete exposures stack up:

• No PSIRT security patches. When a new NX-OS vulnerability is disclosed, the 3064-T will not receive a fixed image. Its software train is frozen, so any CVE affecting that code path on this hardware is permanent and unremediable by patching.
• No TAC or RMA. A failed unit cannot be opened as a Cisco support case or swapped under a service contract. Your only recovery is a cold spare you stockpiled before LDoS or a secondary-market unit of the same dead-end model.
• Audit and compliance exposure. The frameworks federal, DoD, SLED, and healthcare buyers live under — FedRAMP, CMMC, the HIPAA Security Rule, PCI DSS, and CISA directives — expect supported, patchable infrastructure. An unsupported access switch that cannot receive fixes is a finding waiting to happen, and 'the vendor no longer ships patches for this model' is not a defensible remediation plan.

There is also a software ceiling. The 3064-T tops out on older NX-OS 7.x-class trains that lack modern VXLAN EVPN scale, streaming telemetry, and the security features auditors now expect. As you modernize spines and fabric controllers, a Trident+ ToR cannot keep pace — it ages out alongside the management plane built around it.

What each milestone means in practice

• End of Sale (2016-06-07): the last day Cisco accepted new orders for the 3064-T. Everything after this date is consuming the finite support tail.
• Last Day of Support / LDoS (2021-06-30): the hard wall. No TAC, no RMA, no software or security fixes of any kind. From this date the hardware is entirely on its own.

The recommended replacement: Nexus 93108TC-FX3

Cisco directs 3064-T copper deployments to the 10GBASE-T-capable members of the Nexus 9300 fixed family, with the Nexus 93108TC-FX3 (N9K-C93108TC-FX3) as the natural copper successor. It preserves the role you bought the 3064-T for — a dense 1RU copper access/leaf switch — while replacing nearly everything underneath it. Where it improves on the 3064-T:

• Multigigabit copper access. The FX3 offers 48 ports of 100M/1/2.5/5/10GBASE-T on RJ45. The added 2.5G and 5G (NBASE-T) rates let it serve modern multi-rate server and appliance NICs that the fixed-10G 3064-T could not negotiate, while remaining backward compatible with the Cat6/6A copper you already ran.
• 100G uplinks. Six QSFP28 uplink ports replace the 3064-T's four QSFP+ cages. Each QSFP28 accepts 40G or 100G optics (and breakout), so spine-facing capacity jumps from a 160G ceiling to as much as 600G — a real fix for oversubscription as east-west traffic has grown.
• Cloud Scale ASIC. The FX3 runs Cisco's Cloud Scale silicon (LS1800FX3 class) with far larger shared buffers, intelligent buffer management, and hardware VXLAN EVPN at scale — addressing the microburst and incast behavior that punishes shallow-buffer Trident+ switches in modern storage and AI/ML server rows.
• Line-rate MACsec. The FX3 supports IEEE 802.1AE MACsec encryption in hardware on its ports, a capability the 3064-T never had and one that increasingly appears in federal and healthcare segmentation requirements.
• Telemetry and precision timing. Streaming telemetry (model-driven gRPC/gNMI), flow analytics, plus PTP (IEEE 1588) and SyncE give you the observability and timing accuracy expected of a current fabric — none of which the 3064-T offered.
• Dual personality. The same hardware runs in NX-OS standalone mode or as an ACI leaf, so the FX3 fits a traditional NX-OS design today and an ACI fabric later without a hardware change.

Match the role, not just the port count: The 93108TC-FX3 maps cleanly to a 48-port copper ToR. If your 3064-T sat in a higher-throughput or SFP+/SFP28 fiber role, look at sibling Nexus 9300-FX3 models (for example the 93180YC-FX3 for 10/25G fiber access). Browse the current Nexus 9300 lineup in our catalog and we'll size the exact variant to your cabling and oversubscription target.

Licensing: the model has changed

The 3064-T lived in the era of perpetual, per-box NX-OS feature licenses (LAN Base / LAN Enterprise style entitlements installed on the switch). The 93108TC-FX3 uses Cisco Smart Licensing with the NX-OS subscription tiers — Essentials for base Layer 2/3 and Advantage for advanced features such as VXLAN EVPN, segment routing, and richer telemetry — tracked through your Smart Account, with optional Day-2 Operations and Nexus Dashboard add-ons. Budget for the subscription term, not just the hardware, and provision the Smart Account before deployment so each switch registers and licenses cleanly. This is the line item teams most often forget when costing the refresh.

A practical migration plan

1. Assessment and inventory

Pull an exact count of N3K-C3064TQ-10GT units and capture, per switch: rack location and RU, server port utilization (how many of the 48 copper ports are live and at what speed), QSFP+ uplink usage and the spine/aggregation they connect to, VLAN/VRF and VXLAN mappings, NX-OS version, and power draw plus airflow direction (port-side intake vs exhaust). Note any 3064 (SFP+) siblings co-located so you scope one combined refresh rather than several.

2. License transition

Stand up your Smart Account and confirm the right NX-OS tier (Essentials vs Advantage) for each switch's feature set before any hardware ships. Map every perpetual feature you rely on today to its Smart Licensing equivalent so nothing you depend on lands in a tier you didn't buy. Stage entitlements so new switches register on first boot.

3. Config and feature parity

Rebuild the running configuration on the FX3 with NX-OS feature parity in mind. Most interface, VLAN, VRF, routing (OSPF/BGP), vPC, and ACL constructs port across with minor syntax updates, but validate behaviors that differ between Trident+ NX-OS and Cloud Scale NX-OS — buffer/QoS policies, vPC peer settings, and any TCAM carving (the FX3's flexible forwarding tables are configured differently). Run a config diff against the legacy switch so nothing silently drops, and decide now whether you'll enable MACsec, VXLAN EVPN, or telemetry the 3064-T never ran.

4. Physical: rack, power, uplinks, and optics

Both are 1RU, so the rack slot carries over. Confirm power: the FX3 uses dual hot-swappable PSUs, and match airflow direction (port-side intake or exhaust) to your hot/cold aisle exactly as the 3064-T was set. Copper access cabling reuses your existing Cat6/6A RJ45 runs. The uplinks are the real change — QSFP+ (40G) on the 3064-T becomes QSFP28 (40/100G) on the FX3, so plan new uplink optics, AOCs, or breakout cables to the spine, and verify Cat6A on any runs you intend to push at 10G over distance.

5. Phased cutover

Migrate rack by rack, not all at once. In a vPC ToR pair, replace one peer at a time so the rack stays dual-homed throughout — drain traffic to the surviving peer, swap in the FX3, rejoin the vPC domain, validate, then do the second. Confirm server NIC negotiation (especially 2.5G/5G/10G auto-negotiation), uplink reachability, and routing adjacency before declaring a rack done. Keep a rollback path until each rack is validated.

6. Secure decommission

Decommissioned 3064-T switches still hold running configuration, credentials, SNMP/TACACS secrets, and certificates. Wipe each switch (erase startup-config and any stored keys), remove it from your NMS, monitoring, and asset inventory, and for federal and healthcare environments follow your media-sanitization and asset-disposal policy with documented chain of custody. Do not let a retired switch leave the building with live config on it.

Procurement notes for government and enterprise buyers

Source replacements through an authorized Cisco partner. For US federal, DoD, and SLED buyers, confirm TAA compliance and country-of-origin documentation up front, validate that units carry genuine Cisco serials with clean Smart Licensing entitlement, and plan for current lead times on Nexus 9300-FX3 hardware rather than assuming stock. Government Purchase Card (GPC) orders, contract vehicles, and quote-to-PO timelines all benefit from engaging the partner early so licensing, TAA paperwork, optics, and delivery align with your fiscal calendar. Buying gray-market or used 3064-T units to extend a dead platform only deepens the audit and supply-chain problem it was meant to solve.

Ready to scope the swap? Review the full milestone detail for this model on the N3K-C3064TQ-10GT EoL page, browse the current Nexus 9300 lineup in our catalog, and see the broader migration picture on the Cisco EoL hub. When you're ready, get a refresh quote and we'll size the 93108TC-FX3 fleet, NX-OS licensing, uplink optics, and cutover to your data center.