Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches

Cisco Nexus 7000 modular switches are designed to apply changing requirements to any network environments and it is a part of foundation for Cisco unified data center architecture that unifies compute, storage, networking, virtualization and management into a single platform.

Nexus 7000 provides needed foundation for fabric architecture and supports high density 10Gbit,40Gbit and 100Gbit solutions. Based on the widely deployed Cisco NX-OS operating system, Nexus 7k could be heart of Cisco unified fabric solutions delivering convergence architecture scalability and network intelligence for any business.

All chassis in Nexus 7000 family come with the 2 dedicated slots for supervisor modules, with two supervisors Nexus 7000 supports true in-service software upgrade with zero packet loss.

Supervisors at interface modules are common across all chassis offering the highest level of investing and protection, designed with high availability in mind Nexus 7000 has no single point of failure and all components are fully redundant and hot swappable. This is also essential with the Cisco unified data center architecture with the highest level of resiliency.

Cisco Nexus Licenses

Cisco Nexus 7000 Chassis Models

The Nexus 7000 series offers a broad range of chassis options for data centers of all sizes.

The Cisco Nexus 7018 switch has an 18 slots chassis with highest scalability.

The Cisco Nexus 7010 switch has a 10-slot chassis that offers high density with front to back airflow. It is ideal for hot or cold designs into a data center.

The Cisco Nexus 7009 switch has a 9-slot chassis in a more compact form factor.

The Cisco Nexus 7004 switch has a 4-slot chassis that offers the same features and functions for small measure data centers in a most the most compact size.

Cisco Nexus 7700 Chassis Models

The following are the models developed by Cisco:

The Cisco Nexus 7702 is a 3-RU and 2-slot switch that supports all current Nexus 7700 10/40/100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) modules (except the F2E I/O modules), one fan tray (3 fan), one supervisor, and two power supplies. It provides feature and operational consistency and investment protection using NX-OS 7.2 and later. This switch is ideal for small and medium-sized data center interconnect (DCI) solutions though no fabric module is available for these models.

The Cisco Nexus 7706 is a 9-rack unit (RU) and 6-slot switch that offers a compact form factor, high availability, and exceptional performance with front-to-back airflow. That makes it ideal for small- to medium-sized data center access. These Nexus switches support up to six fabric modules, redundant supervisor engines, three fan trays and up to 3000W AC/DC power supplies.

The Cisco Nexus 7710 is a 14-RU and 10-slot switch which offers high availability, exceptional performance, high density 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) and front-to-back air flow.

The Cisco Nexus 7718 is a 26-RU and 18-slot switch offers high availability, exceptional performance, high density 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GE), and front-to-back air flow. That makes it ideal for high performance data center core and Unified Fabric deployments.

Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisors 

Cisco Nexus 7000 series switches can support various types of supervisors to bring seamless flexibility and scalability to the network. In the following table you can explore the supported Nexus 7700/7000 supervisors:

Cisco Nexus 7000 Line Cards

Right now, following line cards are supported for the Nexus 7K switches:

• Cisco Nexus 7000 F1-Series Ethernet Module
• Cisco Nexus 7000 F2-Series Ethernet Module
• Cisco Nexus 7000 F2-Series Enhanced Ethernet Module
• Cisco Nexus 7000 F3-Series Ethernet Module
• Cisco Nexus 7000 M1-Series Ethernet Module
• Cisco Nexus 7000 M1-Series Ethernet Module with XL
• Cisco Nexus 7000 M2-Series Ethernet Module
• Cisco Nexus 7000 M2-Series Ethernet Module with XL
• Cisco Nexus 7000 M3-Series Ethernet Module

Overall, the F1 Series only support L2 features while the F2,3 and M1,2,3 Support L2/3 features. Plus, VXLAN, OTV and MPLS is only supported on the F3, M1/2 and 3 line cards.

Cisco Nexus 7700 Line Cards

The Nexus 7700 data center switches support more than 83 Tbps throughput and are the latest extension to the Cisco Nexus 7000 series modular switches. Currently, the following line cards are supported by Nexus 7700 switches.

• Cisco Nexus 7700 F3-Series Ethernet Module
• Cisco Nexus 7700 M3-Series Ethernet Module
• Cisco Nexus 7700 F2-Series Enhanced Ethernet Module

All these line cards support L2/3 features, fabric path and FEX. Although, the FCOE is only supported on F2E and F3 line cards, VXLAN and OTV and MPLS is only supported on F3 and M3 line cards.

Cisco Nexus 7000 and Nexus 7700 Fabric Modules

The Nexus 7000 and Nexus 7700 fabric modules provide interconnection between line cards and provide fabric channels to the supervisor modules. Adding fabric modules increases the available bandwidth per I/O slot because all fabric modules are connected to all slots.

Cisco Nexus 7000 License

Cisco Nexus 7000 license can be ordered and purchased in order to activate all features on these switches. Different types of licenses are required for the Nexus 7000 and the Nexus 7700 which you can find below:

• Enterprise Services Package: Enables Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol.
• LAN_ENTERPRISE_SERVICES_PKG: Enables L3 features like BGP, EIGRP and GRE Tunnel.
• Advanced Services Package (LAN_ADVANCED_SERVICES_PKG): Enables Virtual device contexts (VDCs).
• VDC licenses (VDC_PKG): Enables eight VDC licenses on the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Supervisor 2 Enhanced module.
• Scalable Services Package (SCALABLE_SERVICES_PKG): Enables all XL-capable I/O modules to operate in XL mode Providing IPv4/6 routes and ACL entries.
• Enhanced Layer 2 Package (ENHANCED_LAYER2_PKG): Enables FabricPath support on the F Series module.
• MPLS Services Package (MPLS_PKG): Enables Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and L3VPN.
• Storage Enterprise Package (STORAGE_ENT): Enables Inter-VSAN routing (IVR) over Fibre Channel and FCoE IVR Network Address Translation (NAT) over Fibre Channel.
• FCoE Services Package (FCOE_PKG): Enables Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE).
• FCoE F1-Series License: Enables Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) for Cisco Nexus 7000 48-port 10G SFP+ (F2).

Also, to manage the Nexus 7000, two types of licenses are needed: the DCNM LAN and DCNM SAN, each of which needs a separate license.

Cisco Nexus 7000 Smart License

This device could be registered by purchasing and assigning Cisco Nexus 7000 smart license to a certain product instance in the CSSM website and with specific smart account. However, by using Nexus 7000 switches PLR smart license all instances could be activated once and forever.

You can get information on price and order from our experts. Please don’t hesitate to ask us. There are different ways that you can opt according to your needs.

Cisco Nexus 7000 Order Pricing

Customers can order the needed licenses by contacting our sales specialists.