Cisco Nexus-серия of switches

2016: Cisco Nexus 9000

Nexus 9000 - series 9000 Cisco switch Nexus, it provides a basis for the organization of the infrastructure focused on applications (ACI).

On March 3, 2016 Cisco provided Cisco HyperFlex Systems. Nexus 9000 is a part of this product line.

Nexus 9000 (2015) switches

Switches of this family provide high scalability, performance and energy efficiency. The company considers them the ideal solution for deployment at the level of aggregation and access in networks of large enterprises, service providers and cloud networks

Features of the Nexus 9000 switches:

• performance on speed of 100 Gbps, increase in non-blocking performance by 25% at twice smaller, in comparison with similar solutions, costs, bigger reliability and smaller power consumption;
• the network telemetry in real time on the speed of the channel of 100 Gbps allowing to ensure safety of network using NetFlow technology and search of problems in all factory;
• possibility of 10-fold scaling to the IP addresses and termination points for cloud networks, support more than one million containers on a rack;
• the unique cloud services with an adaptive capacity and control of overloads giving to customers the chance to support the guaranteed traffic for IP storage systems, hyper convergent and convergent infrastructures at one unified factory that allows to cut by half time of completion of applied transactions (application completion times) in comparison with traditional similar platforms;
• perspective calculation on cloud economy to go to hyper convergent infrastructure and applications on the basis of microservices and containers.

Features

Switches series 9000 are produced in in the modular and fixed Ethernet configuration of 10/40/100 Gbps and are expected work in one of two modes:

• the Cisco NX mode for backward compatibility and coordination with the current set of the solutions Cisco Nexus;
• the ACI mode for use of all advantages of services on a basis the politician and functions of automation of infrastructure of ACI.

Support of ACI

• Support of data processing centers of Cisco of the next generation created on the basis of the strategy of orientation to applications.
• Simplification of deployment of applications, increase in ease of use, adaptivity and flexibility.

Possibility of programming

• API interfaces for control of the switch by means of a remote call of procedures (JavaScript Object Notation or XML) on HTTP or HTTPS.
• Access to a cover of Linux and use of containers for setup of management tools and control.

Scalability

• Up to 30 Tbit / from non-blocking capacity with a delay less than 5 microseconds.
• Up to 1152 non-blocking ports Ethernet of 10 Gbps or 288 non-blocking ports of 40 Gbps of level 2 and 3.
• Support of relaying, routing and gateways in VXLAN network at a transmission rate characteristic of hardwired connections.

High availability

• Full support of software updating without interruption of work (ISSU) and entering of corrections into software without work interruption.
• Use of dedicated integrated microcircuits (ASIC) of Cisco and third-party developers for reliability augmentation and performance.

Energy efficiency

• The chassis without intermediate payment optimizes passing of an air flow and reduces electricity consumption.
• The optimized solution with smaller quantity of dedicated integrated microcircuits provides reduction of energy consumption.
• Power sources with the certificate of 80 Plus Platinum.

Cisco Nexus 9200 is the switch of the next generation like Top of Rack which is moving apart borders possible and exceeding the available solutions on performance. These switches satisfy requirements of dense, hyper convergent applications with a big power of calculations and intensive input-output for which VCE VxRack Systems intends. For example, for customers with hundreds or thousands of the VxRack nodes there is nothing unusual in millions of IOPS and system bandwidth in hundreds of gigabits per second. This problem is also solved by Cisco Nexus 9200. Trey Layton, the senior vice president, the executive director on VCE technologies

2014: Cisco Nexus 9500

Cisco Nexus 9500 - modular non-blocking switch 2 and 3 of level with 8 slots on 13 is resistant - places (13RU) with support of Ethernet and FCOE. Capacity more than 30 Tbit / with on the trunk. The switch supports interfaces 1, 10, 40. In the future and 100 Gigabit Ethernet by means of a complex set of modular net boards.

The switch can be equipped with 1152 ports 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 288 ports 40 Gigabit Ethernet by means of what it has sufficient power for implementation of functions, both the access level, and aggregation level.

Components of the Cisco 9500, 2014 platform

Cisco provides two operation modes for switches of the Nexus 9000 series. For deployment in standard environments with the Cisco switches Nexus, the organizations can use the Cisco NX-OS operating system.

Net boards are connected in any combination, 2015

Expansion units of the Cisco Nexus 9500 platform

For trib-in connection in the Cisco Nexus 9500 platform the solution with the closed structure is used, i.e. net boards connect to expansion units which are established behind. Cisco Nexus 9508 supports up to six expansion units, each of which provides transfer of packets from speed of 5.12 tbit/page. All expansion cards are connected directly to all net boards. Due to balancing of loading on all expansion cards the architecture reaches optimum allocation of capacity in the body. When using net boards with adaptation to ACI only three expansion units are required. When using the net board on 36 ports 40 Gigabit Ethernet without blocking six expansion cards are required.

Module of the supervisor of the Cisco Nexus 9500 platform

Pair of modules of managers with reservation manage operation of all switches in the mode of active reservation with synchronization of a status. Each module of the manager includes the quad-core CPU, 16 GB of OZU and the solid state drive of 64 GB (SSD) for information on boot strap loading and analytics. The manager accepts injection locking and provides management through different ports, including two ports USB, the console of consecutive communication and network port of 10/100/1000 Mbps.

System controller of the Cisco Nexus 9500 platform

Pair of system controllers with reservation unload modules of managers, removing from them control functions by the body. She is responsible for control of power supplies and ventilatory compartments and is the central point for the out-of-band channel Gigabit Ethernet (EOBC) connecting managers, expansion units and net boards.

Power supplies of the Cisco Nexus 9500 platform

Cisco Nexus 9508 supports up to eight power supplies with a possibility of replacement without power off and with access through the front panel. At a full load the body can work with two power supplies of 3000 V of alternating current. The modes of reservation of N+1 and N+N are available. The power supply of 3000 V of alternating current belongs to class 80 Plus Platinum and provides more than 90% of efficiency for standard workloads. Additional four connectors of power supplies are not required when using of the existing net boards, however the empty seat under them is left for performance improvement and installation of other net boards in the future.

Ventilatory compartments of the Cisco Nexus 9500 platform

Three ventilatory compartments with a possibility of replacement without power off provide cooling in the direction in front back. Each ventilatory compartment services two expansion units and is removed for gaining access to modules.

Scenarios of deployment

Cisco Nexus 9508 is a switching platform of multipurpose DPC which can function as the access level switch with installation in the end of a number of racks and is developed, both with Cisco input-output modules, and without them, as the aggregation level switch in a standard hierarchical network architecture and as the switch of termination or nodal point in architecture with horizontal scaling of termination and nodal points.

The access level switch with installation in the end of a number of racks

• Cisco Nexus 9508 can be configured as the access level switch with installation in the end of a number of racks. It can be connected almost to any a blade server or to the rack server through connections 100 Megabit Ethernet, 1 Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, including:
• Rack servers from third-party suppliers and the separate rack Cisco Unified Computing System servers (Cisco UCS)
• Blocks a blade servers from third-party suppliers with switches in blocks or transitional devices
• Cisco UCS

The switch simplifies upgrade of the Cisco Catalyst 6500 series, providing to the existing systems with installation in the end of a number of racks functionality, reliability, scalability and availability of platforms on the basis of Cisco NX-OS OS. As the switch supports connections of 100 Megabit Ethernet, 1 Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet using copper cables, it transfers servers or racks from 1 on 10 Gigabit Ethernet on one (on one).

Each Cisco switch Nexus 9508 is equipped with eight net boards on 48 ports 1 and 10GBASE-T and can service up to 384 servers with thirty two connections 40 of Gigabit Ethernet with the trunk for server access or connections with aggregation level.

Representation of design of Nexus 9500, 2015

2013: Cisco Nexus 5500

Cisco Nexus 5500 is the multilevel, multiprotocol, multi-purpose switch with a matrix. The device works according to standards of Ethernet and allows to transfer any traffic on the basis of a single platform of DPC.

The Cisco switches Nexus 5500 support density of ports 10 GbE, best in the industry, in a standard rack. The increased density of switches accelerates management and saves energy.

2008: Cisco Nexus 1000V

In 2008 Nexus 1000V was issued as the distributed virtual switchboard (vSwitch) for the VMware vSphere environment. To 2013 the product works as the industry platform for cloud computing and services allowing to scale (using VXLAN) solutions of virtualization for the multi-user networks working with different hypervisors.

Nexus 1000V became the industry-first platform with functions of formation of chains of services, readdressings of services and unloading of services using vPath technology.

The version of Nexus 1000V Advanced Edition includes specially developed network Virtual Security Gateway screen interacting with attributes of virtual machines. The range of virtual services of Nexus 1000V is increased by means of such solutions as Cisco Cloud Services Router (the router of cloud services), Citrix NetScaler 1000V (the controller of delivery of applications), vWAAS (the means accelerating work of global networks), ASA 1000V Cloud Firewall (the cloud network screen) and Cisco Prime vNAM (means of the analysis and monitoring of networks).

Nexus 1000V allows in the safe mode to expand a private cloud or physical DPC, transferring a part of their functions to external suppliers of cloud services using the solution Nexus 1000V InterCloud with preserving of all domestic policy and virtual services in a public cloud. The broad functionality, covers almost all network layers from the second for the seventh and includes integration with hybrid "clouds".

Network virtualization support

Cisco developed VXLAN technology, and in August, 2011 made it available to industry partners that allowed to develop the open IETF standard. The format of a frame L2-LISP became standard for frames of VXLAN. For August 22, 2013 the VXLAN technology widely extended in the industry and formed the basis of the best solutions for virtualization of networks. Nexus 1000V became the industry-first platform which supported the solutions VXLAN (since January, 2012). Now Cisco is going to support solutions with NVGRE technology for the Microsoft Hyper-V environment.

Nexus 1000V is the first platform with the gateway VXLAN-VLAN supporting interaction between VXLAN segments and physical segments of VLAN, full compatibility between physical and virtual activities and infrastructures.

In Nexus 1000V improvements for the IETF VXLAN standard, including a possibility of implementation without multicasting are for the first time offered. Nexus 1000V is well scaled and can support more than 16 thousand VXLAN segments, several thousands of tenants and to 32 thousand virtual machines on each pair of modules of the virtual supervisor (Virtual Supervisor Module, VSM).

Flexibility, integration

Initially Nexus 1000V intended for network administrators and from the first day supported the command line interface NX-OS familiar to them and the XML/netconf interfaces.

The platform underwent changes, the REST API interfaces intended for automation and also Power Shell technology for the Microsoft Hyper-V environment were it the part.

Nexus 1000V is well integrated with different platforms of management:

• VMware vCloud Director
• Microsoft SCVMM
• OpenStack
• Cisco UCS Director.

Nexus 1000V is integrated with the solution Cisco Data Center Network Manager (DCNM), simplifying management of DPC networks.

Platform

Nexus 1000V works under control of Cisco NX-OS, one of the most popular operating systems for DPC networks. Nexus 1000V can be set irrespective of the physical Cisco switches Nexus and the Cisco UCS servers in any infrastructure and in network of any vendor.

Advantages

• Nexus 1000V is the best platform of virtual switching for network services at the L3-7 levels
• Nexus 1000V is the only platform which is really well working in the environment with a set of different hypervisors. Nexus 1000V maintains consistent functionality during the work with all popular hypervisors, including ESX, Hyper-V and KVM/Xen.
• Nexus 1000V maintains the most modern functionality necessary for corporate customers and cloud operators, including the advanced VXLAN functions and innovative technologies of connection of services vPath;
• Nexus 1000V is the only cloud network platform providing seamless integration of physical and virtual services within the uniform operational model maintaining transparency of all network functions and uniform diagnostics.

Version control of technology

Two versions of technology for the Nexus 1000V switch are released. The free basic version (FREE Essential edition) includes all functions, such as VXLAN and vPath necessary for cloud network environment of the high level.

The advanced version (Advanced edition) includes additional functions of information security, free licenses on the network Virtual Security Gateway screen and the gateways VXLAN-VLAN.

The high-integrated Nexus 1000V switch