Item: Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Nexus Series Switches

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco Nexus 7000 series switch is being used across the whole organization. It is one of our data center core switch. It provides core routing and fast switching functions for our data center services. All our services from email, DHCP, DNS, and SVIs to other services like web, app and DB pass through this switch.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Virtualization of zones/segments within a data center (DC) can be done on a single Nexus switch. Hence, it saves space for having multiple hardware in the DC.
Scalability is easily achieved due to its modular line card structure.
Ease of configuration and management; you enable the features that you need.

Cons

Implementing jumbo frames on interfaces of its fabric extender series (N2k, etc.) by editing the network QoS does not have to be a global configuration that would affect all its interfaces. It can be improved to become just an interface configuration.
Licensing on the NXOS is a bit complicated and expensive. I understand that the Nexus is made for core data center switching but it does not have to break the bank.
OTV technology is for Nexus only. Based on the advantage of the technology, it should be made vendor-neutral to accommodate other vendor devices.

Most Important Features

Virtual Port-Channel to other non-VPC switches.
Virtualization of other zones/segments in our core using different virtual device context.
Support for Fabric Extenders and Fabricpath (enhanced Layer 2)

Return on Investment

It reduced our cost for colocation space at the data center due to its modular feature that supports virtualization using virtual device contexts.
NXOS Checkpoint and Rollback feature helped us a lot during times when we had configuration errors and needed to rollback changes.
The Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) feature made our SAN implementation easier.

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Nexus saves space in a data center due to its virtualization feature that allows one to create multiple virtual device contexts (VDCs) to represent different segments/zones of a network, and still allow those segments to operate independently like separate physical switches. Cisco 4500x and 4510 series does not give that capability.

Key Insights

Do you think Cisco Nexus Series Switches delivers good value for the price?

Are you happy with Cisco Nexus Series Switches's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco Nexus Series Switches live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Cisco Nexus Series Switches go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Nexus Series Switches again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Aruba ClearPass, Intermapper, Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)

Likelihood to Recommend

Cisco Nexus is almost the best for the data center. The virtualization ability (Virtual Device Context) of a Cisco Nexus to compress the need for multiple hardware in the data center is top-notch. Cisco Nexus also integrates well with DevOp automation tools due to its flexible API. Hence, the experience you get with network automation and programmability on the NXOS is huge. Configuration of Cisco Nexus is pretty easy. Cisco has great documentation to enable anyone to configure a Cisco Nexus switch. The only less appropriate scenario I see in terms of configuration is that I have to do VPC to a switch then connect a server to the non-VPC switch. It would be interesting to set up VPC between Nexus and a Host server, thereby eliminating the switch in between.

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Review of Cisco Nexus Switch

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