The following illustration shows the port-side view of the 8720 Switch models.
| 1 = 40Gbps/100Gbps QSFP+/QSFP28 Ethernet ports | 2 = RJ45 serial console port |
| 3 = Status LEDs | 4 = Type A USB port |
| 5 = RJ-45 out-of-band 10/100/1000BASE-T management Ethernet port MGMT2 - CPU and BMC (secondary) |
6 = RJ-45 out-of-band 10/100/1000BASE-T management Ethernet port MGMT1 - Direct to CPU (primary) |
All of the front-panel ports on the 8720-32C switch operate in either 100 gigabit or 40 gigabit mode, and each port supports multiple data lanes through the use of breakout cables. This means that a given physical port can correspond to either two or four logical ports.
In 100-gigabit mode, each port supports four 25-gigabit data lanes.
In 40-gigabit mode, each port supports four 10-gigabit data lanes.