Cisco's Nexus forms core of datacenter drive

As servers and storage start to merge into unified, virtualized systems, Cisco wants to do the same thing with the networks that connect them.

On Monday, the company is set to unveil a datacenter networking platform that eventually could take the place of both the Ethernet switches that link servers as well as the Fibre Channel devices that form storage networks. The Nexus series is designed both to meet exploding demands for bandwidth and energy efficiency within datacenters and to simplify the jobs of IT administrators. In the process, it could help give Cisco the central role it seeks in IT infrastructure.

Cisco is already a leading player in datacenter networks with its Catalyst-series Ethernet switches and its MDS storage network platform. Now it hopes to transcend those separate systems using a single, unified switching fabric and the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard. The platform it will use, called Nexus, will be a line of routing switches in chassis, rack-mounted, and blade form. The first of these, the Nexus 7000 chassis, will be generally available in the second quarter. Prices will start at $75,000, but a typical configuration will cost about $200,000, according to Jayshree Ullal, senior vice president of Cisco's Data Center, Switching and Security Technology Group.

Mark Drake is looking at the Nexus platform for future-proofing as his company, Health Management Associates, centralizes its data resources. The company runs about 60 hospitals, mostly in the southeastern United States. Health Management's current Catalyst switches are probably enough to handle connectivity needs in its datacenters for the next two years, but it's hard to predict storage and processing requirements beyond that as he looks for the next generation, Drake said.

"I'm looking at a little over 10 years' capacity," Drake said. The Nexus line is built to go far beyond the scale of the Catalysts, delivering more than 15Tbps. "The capacity to grow is huge," he said.

Another benefit Drake sees in the Nexus, which he has been told about but hasn't tested, is ease of management. Health Management is already trying to reduce IT staff costs by consolidating datacenters from each hospital to two main locations. Because the new platform combines storage and data switching along with security in a single switch and management interface, it could further simplify running those datacenters, he said.

Initially, Cisco sees the Nexus switches at the core of datacenters that still use separate networks for processing and storage. But as FCoE emerges in storage systems, the Nexus could become the single connectivity platform, Ullal said. Its switching fabric is designed to be lossless, unlike a standard Ethernet system, which tolerates dropped packets, said Tom Edsall, senior vice president and CTO of the datacenter group. The platform also has built-in security features, including wire-speed encryption and authentication capability for each port.