Nexus 7000 questions

[tinhnho123]

Hi Guys,

I was looking at Nexus 7000 and 7700 series today from this URL https://supportforums.cisco.com/document/12017986/cisco-nexus-7000-and-7700-series-line-cards. There is one thing that i'm not quite sure:

 "All Nexus line cards are wire rate non-blocking (no oversubscription) except those noted."

What is 'wire rate non-blocking (no oversubscription)'? Can you please give me an example?

Compare to Cisco 6500 series, do they have the same feature? 

Thanks.

[Reza Sharifi · Accepted solution]

Wire rate means you get the full speed out of each port.  So, for example if you have a 48 port 1Gig or 10Gig card and the card is wire rate, it means you get 1 or 10Gig full rate speed from each port.

That is not the case for most 6500 line cards, as they are oversubscribed (no line rate).

For example on a 6500, a 6716 line card comes with 16 10Gig ports. but you are not going to get full 10Gig out of each port because the back plane capacity of the card is 80Gig. If the back plane was 160 Gig, then that would be line rate (16x10=160)

HTH

[adawa · Accepted solution]

Hello, tinhnho123

Non-blocking often means the switch's internal bandwidth has sufficient capacity to carry all the port bandwidths, concurrently, at full capacity. Non-blocking could also mean the switch's architecture isn't prone to head-of-line blocking.Non-blocking often means the switch's internal bandwidth has sufficient capacity to carry all the port bandwidths, concurrently, at full capacity. Non-blocking could also mean the switch's architecture isn't prone to head-of-line blocking.

Both the Nexus and Catalyst lines provide a rich set of capabilities, so it all comes down to deciding which interfaces and features your business requires. Cisco may attempt to push the market toward the more expensive Nexus 7000 Series, but your decisions should be based on what your network needs—not what Cisco wants.

Are you already working with a Cisco partner for this project? Feel free to e-mail (adawa@cisco.com) me if you have additional concerns. Kind regards.