1000v Sanity check

[visitor68]

Can the 1000v be deployed in a non-Cisco networking environment? lets say we have HP blades and a Juniper ToR switch.

With  the UCS system, the 1000v CLI is accessed via UCS Manager ( I think Im  right about that). The UCS manager resides on the 6100s.

In a non-Cisco envirnoment, how does the 1000v CLI get accessed and managed?\

Thanks

[Geordie Guy]

The Nexus 1000v is a virtual Cisco switch and can be deployed in any ESX environment as a replacement for or supplementary switch type to the Vmware vDS distributed switch .  It operates in essentially every way like any other Cisco switch, including how it's accessed for management which is an operational issue - either via SSH or using some other management tool.  It's quite seperate to UCS, and can be deployed regardless of server vendor or physical switches in the environment.

[visitor68]

Thank you.

It may work, but is there any functionality that is lost in deploying a 1000v in a non-Cisco environment?

[alan.ambers]

There are folks that can get into much more detail than I.....

As far as I can tell, having a 1000v in your ESX/VMware network is just like having a physical Cisco switch.  Or for that matter, a physical Juniper switch.  The features and limitations are on the 1000v itself, not if it is in a UCS environment or not.

Granted, to set it up, you need to understand not only NX-OS (The Nexus OS, which is not quite like IOS), but how to manage port profiles.  But once you get past that, it is just like another switch in the network.

/alan

[Eric Rose]

Nexus 1kv can be deployed on any compute platform. The only requirement is ESX4+ with enterprise plus license. There is no functionality that is lose when you deploy N1kv on a non Cisco Compute platform.

Thanks

Eric

[visitor68]

Thanks, people....

So, here goes another question.

If one can perform VN-link in Hardware - or VEPA with a non-Cisco switch - whats the value of investing in the 1000v? The purpose of VN-link in hardware/VEPA is to offload switching from the ESX server to the adjacent physical bridge.

Thanks

[Eric Rose]

Well -

VN-link in software or hardware. The answer can come down to features.

There are some features on the N1kv for example vPath, Netflow, ERSPAN which is not yet on the UCS hardware VNlink implementation.

Hope this help

Eric

[visitor68]

Makes sense...my question stemmed from the fact that the industry roadmap is to bypass the hypervisor altogether. So, switching packets between VMs would take place on the adjacent physical switch through the use of SR-IOV-enabled NICs, VEPA and the like. Virtual port configurations, including security, QoS and the like will be configured and managed from th ephysical switch.

So, why spend all that money on 1000v when it will become useless shortly?

[Eric Rose]

I understand what you are saying however what is available today and the roadmap is 2 different things... Personally I haven't seen any roadmap that shows the N1kv becoming useless. The N1kv has features today that isn't availble in any other platform from Cisco or any other vendor.

-Eric