Cisco NX-OS vs. CloudLinux OS vs. Microsoft Windows

It's definitely very well suited for data center environments and the scale that is sometimes required. We also manage many enterprise environments, and we almost never see Cisco NX-OS or Nexus in an enterprise environment, only specifically on the data center side. Mainly because of the lower bandwidth requirements and so on. But it depends on the hardware, since it's a software product.

Incentivized

I think for every business in the world Microsoft Windows is a good use as standard OS system. It’s easy to use and a lot of other company's use it which make it very appealing for user to learn more about Microsoft Windows. The Office 365 suite is really good as a free feature and used a lot by every user of Microsoft Windows. If you got a designer business I would recommend other brands that are specialized in that kind of work. I feel Windows will come short on that end.

Incentivized

• Cisco NX-OS does a great job of supporting high dense environments due to Cisco NX-OS based devices having some of the fastest packet switching performance
• Cisco NX-OS supports high bandwidth environments really well due to the high throughput links that are typically found in Cisco NX-OS network appliances
• Cisco NX-OS provides some of the best redundancy in the way of "Active-Active redundancy" via it's VPC technology. This is especially desirable in data center environments.

Incentivized

• It is very easy to use, can be picked up by a novice in minutes.
• It is aesthetically pleasing, and appears clean and modern.
• Most programs that people use in their day to day run on windows natively.

Incentivized

• I think one thing we'd like to see a bit more in the Nexus space is probably the troubleshooting features. So one would be the I perf feature and being able to test network traffic across links. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of really good features in terms of troubleshooting, but one particular one that we like to see is where we can test network traffic. We can make sure that we have good latency, we got good bandwidth utilization as well. For us that's a big one. We've got to use third party tools to do that. So if the NXOS platform can do it, that's one of the thing we've got to do.

Incentivized

• Forced updates occasionally have bad timing when ignored for too long
• Microsoft Edge Web Browser is a bit clunky
• The 3D desktop still needs some improvement

NX-OS has many similarities with the traditional IOS which is quite beneficial when it comes to configuration and learning. As a native Linux system, there are a lot of tools and features that can be enabled for any use case.

Incentivized

It's easy to use, very straightforward, and user-friendly. It has improved over the years, but you still need to be careful not to shut it down improperly because that may lead to corruption and Windows being unable to boot. There is plenty of software available that covers most needs.

Incentivized

Excellent and the best Automation capabilities with Cisco NX-OS which effectively allows easy management of different networks across the whole organization keeping all the business data secure and well managed. With its ability to detect any data threat and effectively fix the issue, Cisco NX-OS has extremely powerful options and its process monitoring capabilities are the best.

Incentivized

Cisco support never fails me. In terms of timely response, no one is on par with them. They really value the impact of having technical issues and potential business stoppage. Also, their support staff are well equipped with knowledge and skills and easily resolve the most common incidents. Most of the time, we can resolve an issue by just calling them once.

support remains spotty, researching online articles are a pain

Incentivized

MDT helped deploy OS to users machines via PXE boot.

Incentivized

I am much more familiar with the commands in Cisco IOS as it has been around for many more years. I know why NX-OS is a different system and can see the benefits of the fibre channel integration, but I do not understand why the commands had to use a different syntax. With the Nexus switches you don't get a choice of operating system unfortunately.

Incentivized

Microsoft Windows and macOS are both useful operating systems. There are businesses who much prefer macOS and some that prefer Windows. Businesses that revolve around industries such as game design, art design, graphic design may opt to use macOS due to its optimization with programs that revolve around these topics. Other businesses that are more focused towards Data or text processing may opt to use Windows due to its familiarity across the world and ease of access.

Incentivized

Up to now, we haven't had a major ground-shaking attack on our networks but we take no chances by using NX-OS alongside a SIEM. All endpoints and workloads are secure so I would say we have plenty of trust in their security model.

Incentivized

• We do have some implementations on Cisco NX-OS and Nexus hardware, and some of these are already quite old, but they are still running pretty smoothly. So they are super reliable, in my opinion. So that's one of the very positive ways it impacts companies.

Incentivized

• Positively effects our easy of use of other programs
• Take it for granted because it is so transparent in use
• Definitely worth the price.

Incentivized