Solved: 6500 vs Nexus 7000 - flagship switching ??

Jon Marshall · ‎09-01-2009

Haven't had any experience with the Nexus switches but been reading some of the docs and i noticed -

7000 Nexus

"As Cisco's flagship switching platform, the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series is a modular switching system designed to deliver 10 Gigabit Ethernet and unified fabric in the data center."

Which is fine but according to the 6500 docs -

"With industry-leading services and performance, the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switch is Cisco's flagship switching solution."

So i would be interested to hear from Cisco people or anyone else for that matter, which one is Cisco pushing as it's main switching platform in the data centre, campus environment. I know that each has it own capablilties ie. 6500 supports service modules etc.. but from a L2/L3 switching setup which actually is Cisco's "flagship" product.

I only ask because if it's going to be the Nexus i need to get a job again :-).

Jon

Edison Ortiz · ‎09-01-2009

which one is Cisco pushing as it's main switching platform in the data centre, campus environment

Each Business Unit will provide a different answer. At the moment, Nexus is winning over the 6500 in terms of throughput so its place would be at the core | distribution layer in a data center | campus environment while you can place the 6500 at the wan layer and many large companies also use them at the access layer.

Nexus provides the vDC concept where allows you to save in hardware cost but if you are pursuing a mature product, most people opt for the 6500.

Product variety is great and each offer an unique feature that forces you to choose one over the other.

The 6500 won't go away but learning Nexus OS isn't a hard transition.

View solution in original post

R.Siripan · ‎09-01-2009

good shout!, same here, i don't want to invest in something that Cisco is planning no longer sold or might not be supported in the near future.

Jon Marshall · ‎09-01-2009

Ray

This is the sort of thing your Cisco SE/partner should be able to give you answers for, assuming you have a Cisco SE/partner. If you do it would be worth firing the question at them.

Jon

Edison Ortiz · ‎09-01-2009

which one is Cisco pushing as it's main switching platform in the data centre, campus environment

Each Business Unit will provide a different answer. At the moment, Nexus is winning over the 6500 in terms of throughput so its place would be at the core | distribution layer in a data center | campus environment while you can place the 6500 at the wan layer and many large companies also use them at the access layer.

Nexus provides the vDC concept where allows you to save in hardware cost but if you are pursuing a mature product, most people opt for the 6500.

Product variety is great and each offer an unique feature that forces you to choose one over the other.

The 6500 won't go away but learning Nexus OS isn't a hard transition.

Jon Marshall · ‎09-01-2009

Edison

Thanks for the response. Do you know if there are plans to incorporate some of the service modules such as FWSM, ACE into the Nexus switches in the future ?

Jon

Edison Ortiz · ‎09-01-2009

Jon,

I'm not allowed to discuss future plans, sorry.

lephuc007 · ‎03-16-2011

Great question Jon. I recently wanted to know for myself. I think the primary difference is the Nexus has a unified Ethenet frabric that makes all connected switches appears as one logical switch which eliminates stp, whereas the catalyst don't have this feature. Don't quote me.

Le