Nexus 7000
Encyclopedia
The Cisco Nexus Series switches are modular network switches designed for the data center. Cisco Systems
introduced the Nexus Series of switches on January 28, 2008. The first chassis in the Nexus 7000 family is a 10-slot chassis with two supervisor engine slots and eight I/O
module slots at the front, as well as five crossbar switch fabric
modules at the rear. Beside the Nexus 7000 there are also other models in the Nexus range.
All switches in the Nexus range run the more modular NX-OS
firmware/operating system on the fabric. NX-OS is a newly developed OS which has some high-availability features compared to the well-known Cisco IOS
. This platform is optimized for high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
environments. It is as such not a physical box but a software application that interacts with VMware products so you can virtualize the networking environment and be able to configure your VMware vSphere
ESX
and ESXi system as if all virtual servers have connections to a physical switch and include the capabilities that a switch offers such as multiple VLAN's per virtual interface, layer-3 options, security features etc.
high system that can be used in combination with higher end Nexus switches like the 5000 or 7000 series: the 2000 series is not a 'stand-alone' switch but needs to be connected to a parent and should be seen as a 'module' or 'remote line card' but then installed in a 19" rack
instead of in a main switch-enclosure. The interconnection between this 'remote line card' and the 5000 or 7000 parent switch uses the propriety interfaces: CX-1 for copper or the short or long range Cisco Fabric Extender Tranceiver or FET interfaces. In combination with the 5000/7000 mother-switch you can create a so-called Distributed Modular System.
The 2000 series consists of 4 different models. Three models offer 24 or 48 gigabit only or gigabit/fastethernet copper interfaces and up to 4 10 Gigabit uplink interfaces on copper or fibre. The Nexus 2232P offers thirty-two one Gigabit and ten 10 Gbps ethernet and FCoE interfaces.
. Offers layer2
and layer3 capabilities at wire-speed for all 64 interfaces running in 10Gbps. Layer3 routing protocols supported include static routes, RIP v2
, OSPF
and BGP-4
.The switch-fabric can switch 1,28 Tbps and forward up to 950 million packets per second. The switch is capable of building a route-table with up to 16000 prefixes, 8000 host-entries and 4000 multicast
routes and up to 4096 VLAN's
are supported. On top of that a high number of ingress or egress ACL's
can be configured.
The 3064 has a single fan tray, two replaceable power-supplies on board and two separate out of band management interfaces. To connect the 3064 to the rest of the network the use of proprietary EtherChannel
or Link aggregation
using industry-standard LACP or IEEE 802.3ad is supported with up to 32 port-channels with each up to 16 physical interfaces.
The switch holds of 48 SFP+ for 1Gb or 10Gb ethernet interfaces and four QSFP+ each handling 4 x 10Gb interfaces allowing for 40Gbps over a single fibre-pair
-switch module for IBM BladeCenter
that has all 10 Gbit Fibre Channel over Ethernet
or FCoE interfaces. This blade-switch had 14 server-facing downlinks running on 1Gbps or 10 Gbps and six uplinks using 10Gbps SFP+ modules. For out-of-band management three ethernet-interfaces are available: one external 10/100/1000 bps copper interface, one internal management interface for the AMM or Advanced Management Module and one in-band interface using the VLAN interface option. And this blade-switch also has a serial console cable for direct access to the CLI
Like all switches in the Nexus series, the 4001 switch runs the NX-OS
operating system which is the high performance and more reliable alternative of Cisco IOS
for high-end environments.
interfaces. They can be used with the above mentioned Nexus 2000 series fabric extender. The 5000-series offer carrier-grade layer2 and layer3 switching as well as the mentioned FCoE capabilities
The Nexus 5000 has 5 models:
Next to the expansion modules all three Nexus 55xx switches offer the capability to insert a 160Gbps layer-3 routing engine
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
introduced the Nexus Series of switches on January 28, 2008. The first chassis in the Nexus 7000 family is a 10-slot chassis with two supervisor engine slots and eight I/O
I/O
I/O may refer to:* Input/output, a system of communication for information processing systems* Input-output model, an economic model of flow prediction between sectors...
module slots at the front, as well as five crossbar switch fabric
Crossbar switch
In electronics, a crossbar switch is a switch connecting multiple inputs to multiple outputs in a matrix manner....
modules at the rear. Beside the Nexus 7000 there are also other models in the Nexus range.
All switches in the Nexus range run the more modular NX-OS
NX-OS
NX-OS is a network operating system designed by Cisco Systems for their own Nexus series Ethernet switches and MDS series Fibre Channel storage area network switches. NX-OS is designed to support high performance, high reliability server access switches used in the data center...
firmware/operating system on the fabric. NX-OS is a newly developed OS which has some high-availability features compared to the well-known Cisco IOS
Cisco IOS
Cisco IOS is the software used on the vast majority of Cisco Systems routers and current Cisco network switches...
. This platform is optimized for high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
The Nexus switching range
The Nexus 7000 is the high-end model in the Nexus range of datacenter switches. Other models are:- Nexus 1000v virtual switch
- Nexus 2000 fabric extender
- Nexus 3000 series
- Nexus 4001 IBM Blade Center switch
- Nexus 5000 series
- Nexus 7000 series modular datacenter switches
Nexus 1000v
The 1000v is a virtual switch for use in VMwareVMware
VMware, Inc. is a company providing virtualization software founded in 1998 and based in Palo Alto, California, USA. The company was acquired by EMC Corporation in 2004, and operates as a separate software subsidiary ....
environments. It is as such not a physical box but a software application that interacts with VMware products so you can virtualize the networking environment and be able to configure your VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere
VMware vSphere is VMware's cloud computing virtualization operating system.-History:While VMware Infrastructure 3.5 was in development, vSphere was conceived as an enhanced suite of tools with cloud computing utilizing VMware ESX/ESXi 4.The cloud computing-enabled tool suite was spun off as VMware...
ESX
VMware ESX
VMware ESX is an enterprise-level computer virtualization product offered by VMware, Inc. ESX is a component of VMware's larger offering, VMware Infrastructure, and adds management and reliability services to the core server product...
and ESXi system as if all virtual servers have connections to a physical switch and include the capabilities that a switch offers such as multiple VLAN's per virtual interface, layer-3 options, security features etc.
Nexus 2000 series
The Nexus 2000 series are fabric extenders: 'top of rack' 1URack unit
A rack unit or U is a unit of measure used to describe the height of equipment intended for mounting in a 19-inch rack or a 23-inch rack...
high system that can be used in combination with higher end Nexus switches like the 5000 or 7000 series: the 2000 series is not a 'stand-alone' switch but needs to be connected to a parent and should be seen as a 'module' or 'remote line card' but then installed in a 19" rack
19-inch rack
A 19-inch rack is a standardized frame or enclosure for mounting multiple equipment modules. Each module has a front panel that is wide, including edges or ears that protrude on each side which allow the module to be fastened to the rack frame with screws.-Overview and history:Equipment designed...
instead of in a main switch-enclosure. The interconnection between this 'remote line card' and the 5000 or 7000 parent switch uses the propriety interfaces: CX-1 for copper or the short or long range Cisco Fabric Extender Tranceiver or FET interfaces. In combination with the 5000/7000 mother-switch you can create a so-called Distributed Modular System.
The 2000 series consists of 4 different models. Three models offer 24 or 48 gigabit only or gigabit/fastethernet copper interfaces and up to 4 10 Gigabit uplink interfaces on copper or fibre. The Nexus 2232P offers thirty-two one Gigabit and ten 10 Gbps ethernet and FCoE interfaces.
Nexus 3000 series
The model 3064 is currently the only Nexus switch in the 3000-series utilizing merchant silicon the 1U rack-switch with 1, 10 and 40 Gb ethernet interfaces is designed for use in colo centerColocation centre
A colocation centre or colocation center , is a type of data centre where equipment space and bandwidth are available for rental to retail customers...
. Offers layer2
Data link layer
The data link layer is layer 2 of the seven-layer OSI model of computer networking. It corresponds to, or is part of the link layer of the TCP/IP reference model....
and layer3 capabilities at wire-speed for all 64 interfaces running in 10Gbps. Layer3 routing protocols supported include static routes, RIP v2
Routing Information Protocol
The Routing Information Protocol is a distance-vector routing protocol, which employs the hop count as a routing metric. RIP prevents routing loops by implementing a limit on the number of hops allowed in a path from the source to a destination. The maximum number of hops allowed for RIP is 15....
, OSPF
Open Shortest Path First
Open Shortest Path First is an adaptive routing protocol for Internet Protocol networks. It uses a link state routing algorithm and falls into the group of interior routing protocols, operating within a single autonomous system . It is defined as OSPF Version 2 in RFC 2328 for IPv4...
and BGP-4
Border Gateway Protocol
The Border Gateway Protocol is the protocol backing the core routing decisions on the Internet. It maintains a table of IP networks or 'prefixes' which designate network reachability among autonomous systems . It is described as a path vector protocol...
.The switch-fabric can switch 1,28 Tbps and forward up to 950 million packets per second. The switch is capable of building a route-table with up to 16000 prefixes, 8000 host-entries and 4000 multicast
Multicast
In computer networking, multicast is the delivery of a message or information to a group of destination computers simultaneously in a single transmission from the source creating copies automatically in other network elements, such as routers, only when the topology of the network requires...
routes and up to 4096 VLAN's
Virtual LAN
A virtual local area network, virtual LAN or VLAN, is a group of hosts with a common set of requirements that communicate as if they were attached to the same broadcast domain, regardless of their physical location...
are supported. On top of that a high number of ingress or egress ACL's
Access control list
An access control list , with respect to a computer file system, is a list of permissions attached to an object. An ACL specifies which users or system processes are granted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed on given objects. Each entry in a typical ACL specifies a subject...
can be configured.
The 3064 has a single fan tray, two replaceable power-supplies on board and two separate out of band management interfaces. To connect the 3064 to the rest of the network the use of proprietary EtherChannel
EtherChannel
EtherChannel is a port link aggregation technology or port-channel architecture used primarily on Cisco switches. It allows grouping of several physical Ethernet links to create one logical Ethernet link for the purpose of providing fault-tolerance and high-speed links between switches, routers and...
or Link aggregation
Link aggregation
Link aggregation or trunking or link bundling or Ethernet/network/NIC bonding or NIC teaming are computer networking umbrella terms to describe various methods of combining multiple network connections in parallel to increase throughput beyond what a single connection could sustain, and to provide...
using industry-standard LACP or IEEE 802.3ad is supported with up to 32 port-channels with each up to 16 physical interfaces.
The switch holds of 48 SFP+ for 1Gb or 10Gb ethernet interfaces and four QSFP+ each handling 4 x 10Gb interfaces allowing for 40Gbps over a single fibre-pair
Nexus 4000 series
The Nexus 4000 series consists of only the model 4001: a bladeBlade server
A blade server is a stripped down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Whereas a standard rack-mount server can function with a power cord and network cable, blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power...
-switch module for IBM BladeCenter
IBM BladeCenter
The IBM BladeCenter is IBM's blade server architecture.-History:Originally introduced in 2002, based on engineering work started in 1999, the IBM BladeCenter was a relative late comer to the blade market. But, it differed from prior offerings in that it supported the full range of high powered x86...
that has all 10 Gbit Fibre Channel over Ethernet
Fibre Channel over Ethernet
Fibre Channel over Ethernet is an encapsulation of Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks while preserving the Fibre Channel protocol...
or FCoE interfaces. This blade-switch had 14 server-facing downlinks running on 1Gbps or 10 Gbps and six uplinks using 10Gbps SFP+ modules. For out-of-band management three ethernet-interfaces are available: one external 10/100/1000 bps copper interface, one internal management interface for the AMM or Advanced Management Module and one in-band interface using the VLAN interface option. And this blade-switch also has a serial console cable for direct access to the CLI
Like all switches in the Nexus series, the 4001 switch runs the NX-OS
NX-OS
NX-OS is a network operating system designed by Cisco Systems for their own Nexus series Ethernet switches and MDS series Fibre Channel storage area network switches. NX-OS is designed to support high performance, high reliability server access switches used in the data center...
operating system which is the high performance and more reliable alternative of Cisco IOS
Cisco IOS
Cisco IOS is the software used on the vast majority of Cisco Systems routers and current Cisco network switches...
for high-end environments.
Nexus 5000 series
The Nexus 5000 series is a range of 5 models 1U or 2U rack-switches offering 20 to 96 interfaces running on 1 or 10Gb ethernet and 10 Gb FCoEFibre Channel over Ethernet
Fibre Channel over Ethernet is an encapsulation of Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks while preserving the Fibre Channel protocol...
interfaces. They can be used with the above mentioned Nexus 2000 series fabric extender. The 5000-series offer carrier-grade layer2 and layer3 switching as well as the mentioned FCoE capabilities
The Nexus 5000 has 5 models:
- Nexus 5010: one rack-unit high switch with 20 fixed 10Gbps supporting ethernet, FCoE and DCB interfaces and one expansion port offering one of the modules
-
- 8 ports with 1, 2 or 4 Gbps Fibre ChannelFibre ChannelFibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards , an American National Standards Institute –accredited standards...
- 6 ports with 1, 2, 4 or 8 Gbps Fibre ChannelFibre ChannelFibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards , an American National Standards Institute –accredited standards...
- 4 ports with 10Gb FCoE or DCB and 4 ports offering 1, 2 or 4 Gbps Fibre ChannelFibre ChannelFibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards , an American National Standards Institute –accredited standards...
- 6 ports offering 10Gb FCoE or DCB
- 8 ports with 1, 2 or 4 Gbps Fibre Channel
- Nexus 5020: two rack-unit high switch with 40 fixed 10Gbps supporting ethernet, FCoE and DCB and two expansion ports each offering one of the modules
-
-
- 8 ports with 1, 2 or 4 Gbps Fibre ChannelFibre ChannelFibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards , an American National Standards Institute –accredited standards...
- 6 ports with 1, 2, 4 or 8 Gbps Fibre ChannelFibre ChannelFibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards , an American National Standards Institute –accredited standards...
- 4 ports with 10Gb FCoE or DCB and 4 ports offering 1, 2 or 4 Gbps Fibre ChannelFibre ChannelFibre Channel, or FC, is a gigabit-speed network technology primarily used for storage networking. Fibre Channel is standardized in the T11 Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards , an American National Standards Institute –accredited standards...
- 6 ports offering 10Gb FCoE or DCB
- 8 ports with 1, 2 or 4 Gbps Fibre Channel
-
- Nexus 5548P switch: 1U chassis with 32 fixed non-unified ports and up to 16 additional ports using the expansion slot. The 5548 chassis can be the main fabric for the Nexus 2000 series fabric extenders. The interfaces in the expansion slots are:
-
-
- 16 port unified offering 1-10 Gbps SFP+ slot for ethernet and FCoE OR 1,2,4 or 8 native fibre channel
- 16 port SFP+ 10Gbps ethernet and FCoE
- 8 ports SFP+ 10Gbps ethernet and FCoE plus 8 ports 1,2,4 or 8 native fibre-channel.
-
- Nexus 5548UP: also a 1U chassis with 32 fixed unified ports and up to 16 additional ports using the expansion slot. The difference between the 5548P and 5548UP is that the 5548P's fixed (on-board) SFP+ slots are non-unified there where the same SFP+ slots on the UP chassis are unified.
- Nexus 5596UP: a two-RU chassis with 64 fixed unified ports and up to 32 additional interfaces in two expansion slots. Capabilities of the 5596UP is same as the 5548UP but this switch is two RU high and supports two expansion slots
Next to the expansion modules all three Nexus 55xx switches offer the capability to insert a 160Gbps layer-3 routing engine
Nexus 7000 series
The current offering of the Nexus 7000 chassis now includes 9, 10 and 18 slot chassis.The Nexus 7000 chassis capabilities
Although the Nexus 5000 had some modular capabilities and you can attach the Nexus 2000 fabric extender to the 5500 range, the Nexus 7000 is the real modular switch in the Nexus family with three base-versions: the 9 slot, the 10 slot and 18 slot switches. Unlike the other Nexus models, the 7000 series switches are the modular switches for campus core and data center access, aggregation and core. Some details on the models are detailed below. As with the Nexus 5000 series the Nexus 2000 Fabric Extenders can act as a remote line card on the 7000 series.Nexus 7009
- 9 slots: 3-7 are line card slots, 1-2 are supervisor slots
- Supports 336 10Gbps and/or 1Gbps, all non-blocking ports
- 8.8 Tb/s system bandwidth
- 480 Gbps, 720Mpps per slot
- Air flow is side to side
- Up to 5 Crossbar Fabric Modules
- Up to 2 power supplies
Nexus 7010
- 10 slots: 1-4 and 7-10 are line card slots, 5-6 are supervisory slots
- Supports 384 10Gbps, and/or 1Gbps ports, all non-blocking ports
- 9.9 Tb/s system bandwidth
- 480 Gbps, 720Mpps per slot
- Air flow is front to back, bottom to top
- Up to 5 Crossbar Fabric Modules
- Up to 3 power supplies
Nexus 7018
- 18 slots: 1-8 and 11-18 are line card slots, 9-10 are supervisory slots
- Supports 768 10Gbps and/or 1Gbps, all non-blocking ports
- 17.6 Tb/s system bandwidth
- 480 Gbps, 720Mpps per slot
- Air flow is side to side
- Up to 5 Crossbar Fabric Modules
- Up to 4 power supplies