Sounding something like Harry Potter’s Nimbus 2000, Cisco has released the Nexus 7000, a big honkin’ switch, according to an article in the Register. The switch will handle more than your average “physical world” switch, says the report:
But for this new incarnation of Cisco gear, the company is clearly focused on virtualization. The Nexus is designed for simultaneously forwarding storage, Ethernet and IP traffic by virtualizing network interface cards and host bus adapters rather than requiring separate cards for SAN and LAN.
Seeing these as interchangeable means a lot for where Cisco views the new data center world. We won’t be making distinctions between physical gear and virtual gear. They will blend into the same flavor of network without us having to consider the platform. As this level of integration migrates down to lesser model switches (the Nexus is set to retail for around $75K, according to the Register), we’ll see some new methodologies to how we architect networks, particularly around storage and pushing it around to support virtual systems.
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