So What Exactly is a Nexus 4000?—The Answer
OK so first of all, I’d like to thank all the folks here who took time to post extremely useful comments on my previous blog “ So What Exactly is a Nexus 4000?” . I’m glad to see that there is a lot of interest in this product. Also, glad to see that in terms of understanding and perception of the Nexus 4000 functionality, largely everyone got it right.
I’ve posted some details of Nexus 4000 along with some use cases below. I’ve also tried to respond to each of your comments individually towards the end of this blog. As we mentioned during the announcement, this is a general high level functionality introduction of Nexus 4000 Series. Our blade server partners will be making more details available as it relates to their blade chassis so stay tuned for more information. However, please do continue to post your comments & feedback around Nexus 4000 on this blog…
So what is a Nexus 4000?
The Cisco Nexus 4000 Series is a family of blade “switches” for scale-out x-86 blade servers ( non-Cisco). Nexus 4000 is NOT a Fabric Extender (aka FEX), Nexus 4000 is a “Switch”.
Nexus 4000 Series Blade Switches are the fourth generation of blade switches from Cisco. It will fit inside blade server I/O slots to provide network connectivity for blade servers. The first generation blade switch was the Cisco IGESM blade switch. The second generation was the Cisco Catalyst Blade Switch 3000 family , the third generation is the Cisco Catalyst Blade Switch 3100 family (aka VBS). And now the fourth generation is the Nexus 4000 Blade Switches.
So Cisco is not new to the blade switch market, in fact we are clear leader in blade switch market space both in terms of installed base of blade switches & market share even with our Catalyst blade switch product line.
This newest addition to the Cisco Nexus family of data center products, the Nexus 4000 Series will extend the benefits offered by the Nexus family to our partner blade servers. More specifically it provides the Unified Fabric functionality to our partner blade servers.
Nexus 4000 allows the support of a Unified Fabric at the blade server access layer, which consolidates LAN, Storage, which includes SAN Fibre Channel (over Ethernet), IP-based Storage such as NAS & iSCSI, and IPC traffic on a single loss less Ethernet network at the server access layer.
These are line rate, extremely low latency, Layer 2, non-blocking, 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet blade switches that are fully compliant with INCITS’ FCoE and IEEE’s Data Center Bridging (DCB) standards.
At the heart of the Nexus 4000 Series is the Unified Switch ASIC, a new purposed built, high performance, line rate switch ASIC which deliveries extremely low and consistent latency across all pack sizes independent of the configured networking features. The Unified Switch ASIC supports standard Ethernet, as well as, PFC and ETS required for lossless Ethernet transmission. LAN & SAN networking protocols are delivered through NX-OS: the industry’s first modular, fault tolerant, highly available, operating system architected specifically to support unified fabric, data center networks.
So what are the benefits & why would customers want to deploy this?
Lower Total Cost of Operation (TCO): Deployment of Unified Fabric with the Nexus 4000 Series on the blade server access leverages a significant reduction in the number of switches, network interface cards (LAN and SAN), ports, optic modules and cables. This consolidation of server access network elements significantly reduces the overall capital and operation costs of the data center network through the reduction of network elements to purchase, manage, power and cool.
The Cisco Nexus 4000 Series will help lead the transformation from a LAN to a unified fabric solution incrementally within existing blade server environments, reducing disruption for the organization while helping ensure optimal benefits and investment protection.
High Performance: Nexus 4000 is a line rate, feature rich, extremely low latency switch capable of enabling server access migration from 1GbE to 10GbE to lossless 10GbE, as well as, supporting the demanding latency requirements of High Performance Compute clusters or high frequency trading applications.
Customers can also deploy this as a standard Ethernet 10 Gb switch ( both uplinks and downlinks).
Enhanced Server Virtualization: Utilizing Unified Fabric on the server access with Nexus 4000 provides uniform interfaces, simplified cabling and consistent server access design required to leverage the advantages of automated virtual machine mobility. Using the Nexus 4000 in conjunction with the Nexus 1000V delivers the most operationally consistent and transparent server access design for virtual machine deployments substantially reducing the overhead to configure, troubleshoot and repair the server access link between the vNIC, virtual switch and the blade switch.
Increased Resilience: The Nexus 4000 extends NX-OS to blade server access providing a fault tolerant network with single modular operating system across the data center. It is important to note that Cisco is the “Only” vendor in the industry with expertise in developing AND experience supporting both LAN & SAN networking deployments to provide a Unified Fabric/FCoE solution.
NX-OS built from ground up to support Unified LAN & SAN.
What are some of the use-cases for Nexus 4000?
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Thanks again for the comments on my previous blog…
Colin: Nice blog on Nexus 4000 & comment on my blog. As for CEE, going forward Cisco is mainly supporting industry standard term IEEE Data Center Bridging (DCB) but our products are interoperable with CEE.
You are right, Nexus 4000 is indeed not a fabric extender, it is a switch.
Asbjorn: Most of your hopes will come true with Nexus 4000. I would argue about being late to the party. Cisco was the first vendor to introduce an FCoE Top-of-Rack Nexus 5000 switch, leading the industry with FCoE production customer deployments, first vendor to ship FCoE capable blade servers with UCS B-series and first vendor to ship fully functional FCoE functionality day-one on blade switches for traditional blade servers (vs. promise of a future FCoE support or blade switch capable of supporting just CEE in future)…
Rodos: You pretty much nailed it on functionality with your brief comment on my blog. Nexus 4000 is not a Fabric Extender as the UCS chassis, however, it delivers similar Unified Fabric/FCoE functionality as UCS.
Ravikumar: Short but accurate comments.
Nigel: Thanks. You will indeed find Nexus 4000 interesting. It is 10 GbE, FCoE & DCB capable. Keep updating your awesome FCoE educational blogsite …
Stuart: As usual, you are on the mark with the Nexus 4000 description. Cool video …
Carole & Han: http://www.cisco.com/go/nexus4000 page will go live tomorrow with basic info. More details will be provided as our blade partners make Nexus 4000 SKUs available for their blade chassis.
Kevin: Nexus 4000 is not a Fabric Extender, it is a switch similar to a Nexus 5000 in a blade switch form factor. As for the statement “cost effective transition from multiple 1GbE links to a lossless 10GbE for virtualized environments” means that all the ports of the Cisco Nexus 4000 switch will be capable of working as either 1GbE or 10GbE (both uplinks and downlinks to servers) so 1Gb NICs as well as 10Gb CNAs or 10 GbE adaptors can be supported. Customers can connect 1GbE initially if are not ready for 10GbE right away but it provides investment protection since the same switch/port can be used as 10GbE when the customers are ready to migrate to 10GbE to servers.
Posted by Kash Shaikh at 09:57AM PST
GNijs Oct 9, 2009
However, i guess, the Nexus 4000 will not be “stackable” like the 3130 VBS switch. Could someone confirm that ?