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Cisco Nexus 3000 Series switches are Fast, Capable and once deployed, just run!
February 11, 2021

Cisco Nexus 3000 Series switches are Fast, Capable and once deployed, just run!

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Nexus 3000 Series

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Nexus

We are using the Cisco Nexus 3000 (3k) series switches in a split data center environment for a manufacturing data network. We have two UCS B servers in two different physical locations. We use four of the Nexus 3000 series switches for this design, there are two in each data center using HSRP for failover and then trunked with four 10gb uplinks in LAG between them. The network these support are business critical to support our operations. We needed fast switching between the two data centers and the Nexus 3000 series switches were able to solve the design requirements.
  • Fast switching needs for data center
  • HSRP works really well
  • Once on a stable NX-OS build, they can run for extended periods of time with minimal interactions
  • If you are on the wrong code it can be buggy
  • When deploying, one switch was bricked (dead) during an upgrade of the NX-OS, and had to be replaced
  • If you are not familiar with NX-OS it can be difficult to configure
  • They lack some of the functionality that the Nexus 9k has
  • 100% up time for production networks
  • Fast speeds ensure we can maintain production, even if one data center is physically down
  • Reduced down time

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

Yes

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

Yes

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

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco Nexus Series Switches go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco Nexus Series Switches again?

Yes

After working with these switches for a few years I can say I am overall happy with how they work. Getting them setup was a little more difficult than when I setup Nexus 5000 series switches. There seemed to be syntax issues as well as some buggy code that stopped me from doing some very basic things. I did set these up with two in one data center, and two on another to work together with load balancers for servers and VDI. Once they were setup they can be a nearly set it and forget it. They run fast and I have had no issues with them keeping the network up 24x7x365 for years. They can have maintenance done during windows but other than that, I have not had any issues since the initial deployment several years ago. I would not recommend someone trying to replace a core switch with these switches. They really should be kept in the data center, and use a switch that has been designed for more core functionality.

Cisco Nexus Reliability

The Nexus 3000 series switches are data center switches, so I would say they have similar security ability to other switches in this segment. I don't have a lot of experience doing more than basic ACL security on switches, but I know these can be integrated into other security solutions like Cisco ISE and 802.1x authentication. It could also be integrated into an ACI solution to add micro segmentation, which would bring in other security functions.
These switches are very fast. They've been designed to work within the data center. We connect them to Cisco UCS-B Mini servers with the storage being directly attached. They are able to handle the data traffic pretty easily. We can also move servers pretty fast from data center to data center without overloading them. This has allowed our company to stay running during any kind of conditional outage. We have come to really rely on them for business continuity.