nexus 6001 vs nexus 7004

[Peter Coggle]

Hi,

Am a newbie to the nexus switches.

we are planning to have nexus switches for our new datacenter.

Our requirements are simple. we need to have around 300 edge ports (with support for 1 and 10G copper). for the edge layer, we are planning to have 10 nexus 2000 Fex- N2K-C2232TM.

we would need fcoe support in the core.

For the core, we are deciding between nexus 6001 and nexus 7004.

Can you please help me understand the difference betweent the 2 with advantages/disadvantages of both.

Our account manager is on holidays and it will be helpful for us to make some choices in the next few days.

Many thanks for your help again.

Regards

Pete.

[richbarb]

Hello Pete,

It's hard to say, because they are platforms completely different.

What else you expect get of those?

[Leo Laohoo]

6K is a suited as a distribution switch (aka distro).  Basically all your FEX hook up to your 5K/6K and then these distro hook up to the 7K.  You can hook up the FEX directly to the 7K but this would be expensive because if you go beyond that then you need to either get another 7K or 5K/6K. 

6K is more suited for multiple 40 Gbps links from FEX.  If your FEX has an uplink of only 1Gbps or 10 Gbps then you can also get the 5K even though the 6K can support both 10 Gbps and 40 Gbps.

If you have the funds, I would go with 6004 as a distro and 7000 or 7700 with Sup2e supervisor card and FAB-2 line cards.  Don't even bother with the Supervisor1 card because Cisco could be announcing the Sup1 EoS sometime in August 2014.  If you plan to get Nexus 7K, don't bother with F1 and M1 cards.  Go with F2e and/or M2.  If you go with 7700, then get the M2 with F3 cards.

As what Richard has asked, what are you planning to do and what can your budget allow you to do.