After looking
at the Nexus 7000 series switches , I concluded they were a
lot like the Catalyst 6500 series switches without the service modules.I reviewed the configuration guides for both devices for a
comparison of what options each supported today. (These options will
change in new OS versions.)
OverviewThe current focus of the Nexus 7000 is to provide high density 10Gb Ethernet switching for LAN traffic primarily in the data center. (Cisco is planning to provide unified I/O supporting SAN traffic on the Nexus 7000 in the future.) My understanding is that service modules or WAN modules in the high performance backplane of the Nexus 7000 would not be very cost effective, so that an external appliance or service layer should be used to provide these features. The NX-OS is based on the Cisco MDS 9000 SAN-OS Software, and focuses on modularity. As needed, you need to enable the features with the feature feature-name configuration command. In the NX-OS 4.1, the following features can be enabled:
The focus of the Catalyst 6500 is for all purpose enterprise switching and routing, and it supports a multitude of interface types and service modules. The Catalyst 6500 is a work horse of switch. Typically all features in the operating system license are preloaded, and just need to be configured for your specific environment.
Option Summary of the Cisco Nexus 7000 and Catalyst 6500:
OverviewThe current focus of the Nexus 7000 is to provide high density 10Gb Ethernet switching for LAN traffic primarily in the data center. (Cisco is planning to provide unified I/O supporting SAN traffic on the Nexus 7000 in the future.) My understanding is that service modules or WAN modules in the high performance backplane of the Nexus 7000 would not be very cost effective, so that an external appliance or service layer should be used to provide these features. The NX-OS is based on the Cisco MDS 9000 SAN-OS Software, and focuses on modularity. As needed, you need to enable the features with the feature feature-name configuration command. In the NX-OS 4.1, the following features can be enabled:
feature bgp(Some features are available through licensing, others are bundled in the base NX-OS.)
feature cts
feature dhcp
feature dot1x
feature eigrp
feature eou
feature glbp
feature hsrp
feature interface-vlan
feature isis
feature lacp
feature msdp
feature netflow
feature ospf
feature ospfv3
feature pbr
feature pim
feature pim6
feature port-security
feature private-vlan
feature rip
feature scheduler
feature ssh
feature tacacs+
feature telnet
feature tunnel
featur udld
feature vpc
feature vrrp
feature vtp
The focus of the Catalyst 6500 is for all purpose enterprise switching and routing, and it supports a multitude of interface types and service modules. The Catalyst 6500 is a work horse of switch. Typically all features in the operating system license are preloaded, and just need to be configured for your specific environment.
Option Summary of the Cisco Nexus 7000 and Catalyst 6500:
| Option | Nexus 7000 | Catalyst 6500 |
| Operating System | NX-OS 4.0 | 12.2SXH |
| switch virtualization support | VDC | VSS |
| service module support | -- | yes |
| NSF w/ SSO | yes | yes |
| enhanced Fast Software Upgrade | -- | yes |
| sup engine redundancy | yes | yes |
| 48 port 10/100/1000 Ethernet | yes | yes |
| four port 10GE linecard | -- | yes |
| eight port 10GE linecard | -- | yes |
| thirty-two port 10GE linecard | yes | -- |
| T1/E1 WAN | -- | yes |
| T3/E3 WAN | -- | yes |
| HSSI | -- | yes |
| T3/E3 ATM | -- | yes |
| OC-3 ATM | -- | yes |
| OC-3 Packet over SONET | -- | yes |
| OC-12 | -- | yes |
| OC-48 | -- | yes |
| OC-192 | -- | yes |
| SONET | -- | yes |
| centralized forwarding | -- | yes |
| distributed forwarding | yes | yes |
| PoE for GE | -- | yes |
| EtherChannel/Port Channel | yes | yes |
| Multichassis EtherChannel | yes | yes |
| VLANs | yes | yes |
| private VLANs | yes | yes |
| 802.1Q tunneling | yes | yes |
| Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol | -- | yes |
| RPVST | yes | yes |
| MST | yes | yes |
| MPLS | -- | yes |
| AToMPLS | -- | yes |
| FRoMPLS | -- | yes |
| EoMPLS | -- | yes |
| MPLS VPNs | -- | yes |
| iBGP and eBGP | yes | yes |
| OSPF | yes | yes |
| EIGRP | yes | yes |
| ISIS | yes | yes |
| VRRP | yes | yes |
| HSRP | yes | yes |
| GLBP | yes | yes |
| IP Multicast | yes | yes |
| IGMPv1/v2/v3 | yes | yes |
| IGMP Snooping | yes | yes |
| PIMv1/v2 | yes | yes |
| MSDP | yes | yes |
| SSM | yes | yes |
| IPv6 routing | yes | yes |
| IPv6 Multicast routing | yes | yes |
| Policy Based Routing | yes | yes |
| QoS - LLQ | -- | yes |
| NBAR | -- | yes |
| VLAN ACLs | yes | yes |
| CoPP | yes | yes |
| DHCP Snooping | yes | yes |
| IP Source Guard | yes | yes |
| Dynamic ARP Inspection | yes | yes |
| 802.1X Authentication | yes | yes |
| NetFlow v8 | -- | yes |
| NetFlow v9 | yes | -- |
| SPAN/RSPAN | yes | yes |
| Cisco TrustSec | yes | -- |
