Introducing Nexus 5624Q Switch: Seamlessly Migration from 1G to 10G/40G

Recent trends like Big Data, Video, and Collaboration are shaping the Enterprise IT environments. At first glance, these trends might not seem like anything new. But what is different is that technologies are now available that lets organizations deal with these trends in a better way ( for example 10/40/100G availability , Multicore processors driving higher I/O, BiDi Optics, New gen multi-protocol Fabric Extender (FEX), etc). New innovations from Cisco help organizations face these challenges posed by the next gen dynamic data centers in a seamless manner. And, of course, everyone is being tasked to do more with less.

To enable seamless transition to 10GE, 40GE and 100GE, today Cisco is announcing the following new additions to the Nexus 5600 Series Switches

New Nexus 5624Q – One RU, Wire rate 12-Port 40GE or 48-port 10GE switch and supports higher density with expansion modules
100 GE LEM – 4 port 100 GE LEM for Nexus 5696Q and Nexus 6004EF

The Cisco 5624Q, the new addition to the popular and widely adopted 5600 Series (Nexus 5672UP, Nexus 56128P, and Nexus 5696Q), provides seamless transition to 10/40G and makes IT resources and staff more efficient through consolidating workloads and delivering a truly converged solution.

The Cisco Nexus 5624Q Switch is a 1RU, wire-rate 12-port 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) or 48-port 10 GE Switch and scales up to 24-port 40GE or 96-port 10GE using breakout cables. It supports one expansion slot for future growth and offers a feature rich, high-performance top-of-rack and access aggregation solution for small-medium density 40GE, 10GE and FCoE deployments.

Up to 96 10-Gbps or 24 40-Gbps line-rate, Layer 2 and Layer 3 ports in One-rack units (1-RU)
Up to 1152, 1 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet server ports with the Cisco Nexus 2200/2300 Series Fabric Extenders
Large buffers to handle data bursts
VXLAN support for virtualized and cloud deployments
10/40G FCoE for LAN/SAN convergence
Microburst Monitoring for congestion mediation
SPAN on Latency to identify congested flows
SPAN on Drop for identifying congestion points
Expansion slot to accommodate future growth

100G LEM: 4 port 100G LEM for 5696Q and 6004EF

Up to 32 ports of 100G per N6004EF/N5696Q Chassis
30Mb of ingress buffer for handling storage and big data traffic
100G MAC
Support of 3x40G and 12x10G
CXP Pluggable Optics

Why choose Nexus 5600 Series?

The Cisco 5600 series provide a low entry point for customers who wish to incrementally transition to 40G without sacrificing performance. The New 5624Q provides a minimum of 12 ports of 40 GE and scale up to 96 ports of 40 GE using Nexus 5696Q.

Cisco Nexus 5600 along with Cisco Nexus 2200 /2300 Series Fabric Extenders(FEX) offers architectural flexibility, highly scalable server access, and simplified operations. A single 5696Q switch can be used to aggregate FEX at Layer 2 / Layer 3 – providing single logical switch to manage 2000+ servers.

The Nexus 5696Q/6004EF LEM supports 4 ports of 100GE, ideal for a leaf/spine architecture. The 100 GE LEM reduces cabling complexity while increasing throughput and return on investment.

Customer Deployment Scenarios

The Cisco Nexus 5624Q Switch is optimized for leaf and spine architectures, compact aggregation, high-performance 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet server access, and Cisco Fabric Extender (FEX) aggregation and FCoE deployments. Nexus 5600 along with Nexus 2300 provides architectural flexibility and can be efficiently deployed to support wide variety of configuration options including EoR/ToR, VPC/eVPC, FabricPath, DFA, VXLAN and LAN/SAN convergence.

Use case 1: 1G to 10G/40G seamless migration

Nexus 2300 in Conjunction with 5600 Series Switch can be used to seamlessly migrate from 1G connectivity to 10G as it supports speed from 100M to 40G. Bidi Optics provides cost saving of upto $4000, as no change of cabling is needed to move from 10G parent to 40G.

Use Case 2: LAN/SAN Convergence with FEX

Enterprise storage requirement includes support for both FC and Ethernet based storage protocols (ie FCOE, iSCSI etc). The Nexus 5624Q provides future support for native fibre channel (16G) connectivity to the existing FC SANs in the data center and enables an evolutionary path to the next gen converged architecture. Nexus 5624Q along with Nexus 2200/2300 (FEX) provides the architectural flexibility to scale LAN/SAN convergence and can be deployed in EoR/ToR scenarios.

Summary:

The Cisco 5624Q series provide a low entry point for customers who wish to incrementally transition to 40G. The Cisco Nexus 5624Q Switch is optimized for leaf and spine architectures, compact aggregation, high-performance 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet server access, and Cisco Fabric Extender (FEX) aggregation and FCoE deployments. The newly introduced 100 G LEM for Nexus 5696Q/6004EF provide support for up to 32 ports of line rate 100 GE using a single switch.

Nexus 5624Q is ideal for: