I have just got two new Nexus 9396PX in my lab, and let's quickly walkthrough some unique features and capabilities on N9K eNXOS.
Comparing with Nexus 7K and 5K which have 2 separate images (kickstart and system), N9K eNXOS has only a single image file.
Although there is VDC command available, only single VDC is supported.
You can enable Linux bash shell access by issuing command "feature bash-shell"
You can also access to Python shell to do some programming and automation to the switch using python scripts.
Moreover, you can access to Broadcom shell for low level troubleshooting
There is a built in tcpdump-like sniffer, this example is simply sniff the traffic of my OOB mgmt port.
N9K standalone offers RESTful NXAPI as the northbound API, you can enable it by using command "feature nxapi"
then access the page http://<your 9K address> from your browser
Then you will see this Developer sandbox, which allows you to test the API calls and let you know the syntax and format:
For example you can submit a "show version" command and it will show the corresponding JSON request format and response, it saves you time to look at documentation to understand the request and response format.
And you can even submit bash shell command via NXAPI, it is really powerful.
