[c-nsp] Catalyst vs. Nexus

[Arie Vayner (avayner)]

Michael,

I suggest you take a look here:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9441/Products_Sub_Category_Home.ht
ml

Basically the whole Nexus family is running a different OS (NX-OS) which
is based on the MDS storage OS line.
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9372/index.html

There are a few differences between Catalyst switches and Nexus
switches.

For example, Nexus supports vPC, which means that you have a
multi-chassis EtherChannel trunk from a pair of Nexus 5000/7000
distribution switches to any EtherChannel enabled access switch. This
basically doubles the Access->Distribution bandwidth as you have no
links blocked by Spanning Tree.

Another major difference is the integration of Nexus 2000 Fabric
Extenders with Nexus 5000 switches. The Nexus 2000 switches basically
act as remote (over 10Gig fiber) "linecards" of the Nexus 5000. This
allows deploying top of the rack switches without the additional
management overhead:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10110/index.html

Hope this helps.

Arie

-----Original Message-----
From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net
[mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Michael Malitsky
Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 00:12
To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
Subject: [c-nsp] Catalyst vs. Nexus

Hello,

I am working on the first 10Gig deployment in a small data center.  Main
driver is a SQL database, so there will be a bunch of SQL servers
virtualized using VMware, running against a SAN over iSCSI.

I've done some research and it looks like I can build the network using
a Catalyst 4900M or a Nexus 5010, at about the same cost.  I am familiar
with the Catalyst family, but have no experience with the Nexus.  At
this point, the only major difference I see is that Nexus supports Fibre
Channel (which I don't need).  For being different product families, I
am having a hard time understanding what the major differences are.  Can
anyone enlighten me?  
If anyone has hands-on experience with both and willing to share, that
would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Michael Malitsky


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