My first impression upon hearing DC3 had been released as "The Cisco Nexus 7000" was "who came up with that name"? The Nexus 7000! What, DC3 was too complicated? Did I miss it and the Cisco Catalyst 6600 or something similar was already released?
DC3 was simple, easy, and succinct. And it aligned with Cisco's Data Center 3.0 Strategy. What a thought! A new product, focused on core data center networking, with the same name as your huge data center networking solutions and marketing program. Nah, Nexus 7000 is much better.
Plus, starting at $75,000 - which probably gets you a chassis, a single SUP, and no power supply - a colleague of mine suggested the name should've been the "Lexus 7000". Good one! It's probably the same people who came up with Cisco's cute new logo.
As for the switch itself; yes, very nice. Just as CRS was the next evolution of a BFR, this is the next evolution of a BFS. Cisco was lagging beyond smaller - ok, much smaller - competitors in 10GIG capacity and needed to take the next step. DC....err....Nexus 7000 is that next step. Data center cores, and some access switches with the proliferation of 10GIG interfaces on rack-and-stack servers and large compute frames, are demanding high-density 10GIG. I'll need to do more research into the geek porn aspect of the switch - how much data it can push on the backplane, max port density, non-blocking cross-bar fabric architecture, resiliency, port ASICs, etc. I'm sure it will be very impressive.
However, one of my big concerns is this is another software platform to manage. There's Cisco IOS for routers, modular IOS for 6500s/7600s, IOS XR for CRS, and now NX-OS. Then through in all the feature sets, versions, and release levels, and soon you'll be hiring engineers dedicated to managing Cisco code (ok, some of you already have). I'm sure Cisco will say this is the most stable software platform for high availability data centers, but still, it's more to manage, learn, and support. Operation teams are not going to be happy.
So, I have my reservations about N7000 (my new name), but I'm sure it will be a workhorse in data centers soon. Once Cisco works through the 1.0 issues and releases the N7100, I'm sure it will pick up steam. And I hear we're getting an evaluation unit next week... COOL!
Michael Morris is a communications engineering manager at a $3 billion high-tech company. His background is in enterprise WANs working with telcos, and developing large-scale routing designs. He has worked on networks at government and corporate organizations, including networks at two Fortune 10 companies. In his current role, he leads large-scale IT networking projects and develops and maintains architectural standards for data networks, storage area networks, IP Telephony, and security. Michael is a CCIE and has 11 years experience in networking and communications, including four years as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army. He has a bachelor's degree in MIS from the University at Buffalo. Recently, he was awarded the Network Professional Association® (NPA) Professional Excellence and Innovation Award for his work on network architecture, templates and enterprise MPLS design.
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NX-OS 4.0 - not so new code - Roots are in SAN-OS
I am not sure if you have had a chance to look under the hood yet, but NX-OS is the next evolution of SAN-OS which has been running Cisco's MDS Storage Networking platform for the past few years. It is based around a Linux kernel and emulates other vendors (cough, juniper) tactics of separating the control and data planes.
I think when you have a chance to work with the SAN-OS based features you will be really impressed. (or if you have MDS in your datacenters or labs, hop on and take it for a spin).
--Colin
Cisco Nexus 7000
Well, I named it. So blame me. :)
I also like DC3's - always wanted to fly one... but we really see this as a new category of switching, not just Ethernet and not just FibreChannel. New categories often need new taxonomy- and according to dictionary.com a Nexus is:
1. a means of connection; tie; link.
2. a connected series or group.
3. the core or center...
so given this is the core and foundation for the infrastructure chapter of our Data Center 3.0 strategy (coincidentally another term that I have spent some time explaining... maybe I need to use outside agencies next time... :) and that this connects the LAN, SAN, and High Performance Computing worlds together in new ways it struck me as an accurate and insightful name.
The number 7000? Well, it's big... And affords us some flexibility in going up and down-market without getting into obscure 5-digit numbering.
The base-price does include power supplies. I understand your sentiments on NX-OS- I wrote this blog entry yesterday to address some of the questions that you have- http://blogs.cisco.com/datacenter/2008/01/why_a_new_os.html
Thank you.
dg
Hope you enjoy the eval unit...
but since you haven't looked under the hood I guess you felt it was best to comment on the only thing you did know, the name. Seems a bit cowardly to me. You state you don't know what a customer gets for their $75,000 but speculate nonetheless. True unbiased journalism at it's best.
RE: Hope you enjoy the eval unit...
Touchy, touchy. It came out a week ago, might want to give me some time to review it in detail, which I said I would.
As for cowardly, how about putting a comment up there with your name on it instead of "anonymous", mine is on every blog. Do you work at Cisco? Maybe on the DC3....I mean....Nexus 7000 development team?
Oh, and this is a blog, not unbiased journalism.
Mike
LOL!
"
As for cowardly, how about putting a comment up there with your name on it instead of "anonymous", mine is on every blog."
Poww! ;)
Sounds like a rebadged
Sounds like a rebadged Juniper wanna-be to me.
Cisco Nexus innovations == Juniper been-there-done-that
Cisco NX-OS == Juniper JUNOS
Cisco virtualization == Juniper vsys
Cisco OS modularity (Linux) == Juniper BSD OS daemon