Cisco Nexus switches
The Cisco Nexus 7000 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.
The Nexus switching range
The Nexus 7000 is the high-end model in the Nexus range of datacenter switches. Other models are:[1]
- Nexus 1000v virtual switch
- Nexus 2000 fabric extender
- Nexus 3000
- 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 VMWare environments[2]
Nexus 2000
The Nexus 2000 series are fabric extenders: 'top of rack' 1U high system that can be used in combination with higer end Nexus switches like the 5000 or the Nexus 7000 series: the 2000 series is not a 'stand-alone' switch but can be seen as a 'module' of a modular switch like the 5000 or 7000 series but this module can be installed in a 19" rack in stead of in the main switch-enclosure[3]
Nexus 3000
The model 3064 is currently the only Nexus switch in the 3000-series being a 1U rack-switch with 1, 10 and 40 Gb ethernet interfaces that is designed for use in colo center. Offers layer2 and layer3 capabilities [4]
Nexus 4000
The Nexus 4000 series consists of only the model 4001: a blade-switch module for IBM BladeCenter that has all 10 Gbit Fibre Channel over Ethernet switch[5]
Nexus 5000
The Nexus 5000 series: a range of 5 models 1U or 2U rack-switches offering 20-96 1 and 10Gb ethernet and 10 Gb FCoE interfaces. 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[6]
The Nexus 7000 series
The Cisco Nexus Series runs the NX-OS operating system. The switch is designed to deliver high availability for data center class switching. This platform is optimized for high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet.
The current offering of the Nexus 7000 chassis now includes a 18 slot chassis (2 for the supervisor engines + 16 modules); this allows for 512 10GE connections (128 at line rate).[7]
Chassis capabilities
7010
- 10-Slots: 1-4 and 7-10 are line card slots, 5-6 are supervisory slots[8]
- Supports 256 10Gbps, and/or 384 1Gbps ports
- 1.2 Tb/s system bandwidth, future proof to 15+ Tb/s
- 80 Gbps, 60Mpps per slot
- Air flow is front to back, bottom to top
- Up to 5 Crossbar Fabric Modules
- Up to 3 power supplies
7018
- 18-Slots: 1-8 and 11-18 are line card slots, 9-10 are supervisory slots
- Supports 512 10Gbps, 768 1Gbps, and 128 non-blocking 10Gbps ports
- 7.8 Tb/s system bandwidth, future proof to 17.6Tb/s
- 256Gbps, 192Mpps per slot
- Air flow is side to side
- Up to 5 Crossbar Fabric Modules
- Up to 4 power supplies
References
- ^ Cisco product overview Datacenter switches: Nexus, visted 28 May, 2011
- ^ Cisco brochure Cisco1000v Virtual Switch, PDF, retrieved 28 May, 2011
- ^ Cisco brochure Nexus 2000,PDF, retrieved 28 May, 2011
- ^ Cisco brochure ,Nexus 3000, PDF, retrieved 28 May, 2011
- ^ Cisco brochure ,Nexus 4001, PDF, retrieved 28 May, 2011
- ^ Cisco brochure ,Nexus 5000 series, PDF, retrieved 28 May, 2011
- ^ Cisco Nexus 7000 Series 32-Port 10Gb Ethernet Module, 80Gb Fabric data sheet
- ^ Nexus – 7000 Hardware