Omar Sultan Feb 11, 2009

I’ll tell ya what, when it ships, I’ll send you a pair of bunny slippers, so you are all set

Mike DiPetrillo Feb 12, 2009

I can tell you for sure that #1 - 3 are true although I’ve heard confusion over them. Just for an example I have 3 ESX hosts in my basement that I built with parts from Frys for under $500 each. All of them are running the next version of VMware. All of them have Cisco 1000V running. They’re all connected to a Dell workgroup GigE switch. It all runs just great.

Of course in the official lab I maintain at the EMC/VMware office here in Atlanta we have a much better setup with servers connected to both a Cisco 2950 and a Nexus 5000. Some have GigE ports and some have CNA cards. Without a doubt the more you’re willing to change and either connect to existing Cisco Cat switches or the new Nexus switches the better things get. My ideal setup is the server with 2 CNA cards connected to the Nexus 5000 in top of rack going off to the 7000 or Cat 6k. There are so many great things about that setup that it would take a much longer comment box.

Leo Feb 17, 2009

Would Cisco like to acquire VM?

Benson Schliesser Feb 19, 2009

Omar, you’re absolutely right: there is a lot of confusion over the Nexus 1000v.

Being somewhat familiar with the platform (it’s in my lab right now) I can corroborate your denial of the most common incorrect assertions. In fact I wear several different pairs of shoes depending on the weather, meeting agenda, and mood. I especially like wearing a recently acquired pair of customized white Converse while in the lab.

But I can also understand why the majority of folks are confused. There isn’t exactly a lot of detail available on what the 1000v does and/or will do. For instance cisco.com doesn’t have any tech specs or configuration guides that I can find. (Maybe my search skills are inadequate?)

And the second assertion that you deny above, that the 1000v doesn’t solve any real-world problems, would be easier to discuss if you could expose some details about the feature set. I’m not asking for pricing etc, just for a more solid product description than exists publicly today. For instance, I like the benefits Nexus 1000v theoretically brings to network management but I don’t yet see why the 1000v approach is better than others. More importantly, I’m excited about VN-link and the way that it could revolutionize VM network management, behavior and performance. But this is a far-away concept, from several perspectives… Perhaps you could say something about how VN-link is implemented (controlled, etc) and its time-line for availability?

Cheers,
-Benson

Omar Sultan Feb 19, 2009

Benson:

Thanks for you comments.  I agree that there is some scarcity of documentation for the N1KV right now.  What we have is found at http://www.cisco.com/go/1000v, where, under “featured content” there is a basic design guide.  Unfortunately, the secret squirrel aspects of working with VMware’s cool new offerings restricts what we have been able to publicly discuss/release, but, rest assured, as we get closer to release, you will see a richer set of collateral made available by both Cisco and VMware.

Omar