Cisco Nexus 7000 - Place in the Network

This is the typical Data Center network using Cisco Nexus 7000. The design consists of three layer : Core, Aggregation, and Access.

Cisco Nexus 7000 could be positioned anywhere in the Data Center, but Cisco Nexus 7000 best position is at the Core due to its high speed interfaces density.



Today's Cisco Nexus 7000 only support Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, but in the future Cisco Nexus 7000 will also support 40 Gigabit Ethernet and 100 Gigabit Ethernet.

Switches at the Aggregation and Access layer could be Cisco Nexus 7000, Cisco Catalyst 6500, or even smaller switches. All depend on many factors, like features, cost, etc.

Cisco Nexus 7000 meets Today and Future Switching Needs

Industry analysts agree that the Nexus 7000 meets today’s switching needs and is expected to address future data center upgrades over the next decade.

Gigaom
Om Malik, January 27, 2008, Cisco Switches 10G, Makes Play For Data Centers

There is no denying that Cisco is making the right bet on what seems to be a long cycle of data center upgrades.

As more and more of our lives become digital, the data centers become critical hubs (or factories) and they need an underlying infrastructure to support not only today’s but tomorrow’s demands. Corporations, for instance are not going to put their software-on-demand solutions on a pokey infrastructure built with technologies that came to the forefront in the dying days of the 1990s bubble.

Cisco Nexus 7000 stands alone in term of Virtualization Capabilities

Forbes
Andy Greenberg, January 28, 2008, Cisco's Big Switch

The Nexus 7000 really gets interesting, says Yankee Group analyst Zeus Kerravala, when it's combined with another revolutionary IT innovation: virtualization.

Today, virtualization increases a data center's efficiency by about 25%, Kerravala estimates. But in combination with a switch like the Nexus, virtualization could mean cooperation between multipurpose servers across cities and time zones. "It's like in Star Trek, when Sulu would transfer power from life support to shields," Kerravala says. "You don't have resources just sitting around anymore. You pool all your resources together no matter where they are."

Brocade's switch can't connect data centers over vast distances like the Nexus, making it less attractive in an increasingly virtualized IT world. "Cisco has created the switch for the new virtualized data center," says Cindy Borovick, an analyst with IDC. "They're the leader in this field."

Computer World
Matt Hamblen, January 28, 2008, Cisco unveils the Nexus 7000, its biggest switch ever

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research Inc., said the Nexus 7000 "sets a new bar" and will serve well in data centers with virtualized pools of computing resources, whether they be processing, memory or storage. "Cisco has built a box that meets data center needs today and one that will allow for enterprises to implement a larger virtualization vision," he said. Cisco's competitors don't come close to the Nexus 7000, he said, because it provides network and computing innovations together.

Cisco Nexus 7000 tested by Microsoft and Lawrence Livermore National Labs

Customers experimenting with Nexus...

Forbes
Andy Greenberg, January 28, 2008, Cisco's Big Switch

The Nexus already has several unofficial customers: Microsoft and the Lawrence Livermore National Labs are already experimenting with data centers built around the Nexus.

Computer World
Matt Hamblen, January 28, 2008, Cisco unveils the Nexus 7000, its biggest switch ever

Doug East, high-performance computing manager at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said…that the Nexus 7000 has great potential for scientific computing. With its scalability, enhanced security and virtualization and its 10Gbit/sec. Ethernet ports, East said the Nexus 7000 could be applicable for Lawrence Livermore.