Cisco unveils open networking “fabric” for data centers, clouds
Network speed, latency, and greater network port density in a single unit are key considerations for customers deploying virtualized data centers and moving to a managed cloud environment where microseconds count, and physical data center real estate is limited.
To sustain their differentiation, Cisco today unveiled the Cisco Nexus 6000, the world’s first 96-port, line rate 40-gigabit fixed form factor switch with Ethernet and Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and 1-microsecond latency across all ports. For example, the Nexus 6000 can transfer the entire content of the Library of Congress in just 210 seconds.
Cisco also added rich services modules to its Nexus 7000 Series, and 40-gigabit uplink extensions to its Nexus 5000 and 2000 product lines. With these extensions, Cisco’s Unified Fabric portfolio now delivers an unequaled end-to-end 40-gigabit solution providing design flexibility for virtual and cloud deployments of converged networks with 10G and 40G FCoE support, while enabling greater visibility in the network.
The Nexus 6000 Series expands Cisco’s data center switching portfolio, providing greater deployment flexibility through higher density and scalability. The new Nexus 6000 Series brings the highest 10GE/40GE density in a fixed form factor, and offers unprecedented network visibility and programmability. It runs the industry-leading Cisco NX-OS with robust integrated layer 2 and 3 feature set.
The Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Network Analysis Module (NAM). Cisco’s flagship data center switch continues to evolve into a services-rich platform with the announcement of the first services blade, the Network Analysis Module. The NAM brings application awareness and performance analytics to the Cisco Nexus 7000, empowering IT with unparalleled actionable visibility into the network, improving application performance, optimizing network resources and helping to more effectively manage services delivery in cloud and virtualized deployments.
Cisco Nexus 2248PQ fabric extender and the Nexus 5500 Series switch 40 gigabit Ethernet uplink capabilities provide investment protection and choices for an end-to-end 40GE solution. The new Nexus 5500 40GE module provides customer with the option of deploying 40GE uplinks in their existing Nexus 5500 to reduce over-subscription, while the new Nexus 2248PQ switch provides a 10GE top-of-rack fabric extender with 40GE uplinks.
The Nexus 1000V InterCloud orchestrates hybrid cloud environments by extending corporate enterprise environments into the provider cloud with simplicity and industry-leading security. The Nexus 1000V InterCloud preserves existing networking capabilities and L4-7 services while bringing manageability of the enterprise into the provider cloud to create a consistent, reliable, predictable environment for physical, virtual and cloud workloads, freeing IT management to run and move applications without compromise. The solution provides choice of provider clouds and operates in a hypervisor-agnostic manner.
The Cisco Virtual Network Management Center (VNMC) InterCloud offers new capabilities including a single policy point for network services across both enterprise and provider domains; the ability to manage virtual machine lifecycle across multiple hypervisors in hybrid clouds; and the ability to manage multiple provider clouds via APIs.