Information About Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
is a family of top-of-rack switches for the data center. The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
offers high-speed Ethernet switching and supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet
(FCoE) to provide data center I/O consolidation.
Currently, the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
has two switches: the
Cisco Nexus 5010
switch which provides 20 fixed Ethernet ports in a 1 RU switch, and the
Cisco Nexus 5020
switch which provides 40 fixed Ethernet ports in a 2 RU switch. Optional
expansion modules provide Fibre Channel ports and additional Ethernet ports.
New Technologies in the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
Fibre Channel over Ethernet
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) allows Fibre Channel traffic to be
encapsulated over a physical Ethernet link. FCoE frames use a unique EtherType
so that FCoE traffic and standard Ethernet traffic can be carried on the same
link.
Classic Ethernet is a best-effort protocol; in the event of
congestion, Ethernet will discard packets, relying on higher level protocols to
provide retransmission and other reliability mechanisms. Fibre Channel traffic
requires a lossless transport layer; as a data storage protocol, it is
unacceptable to lose a single data packet. Native Fibre Channel implements a
lossless service at the transport layer using a buffer-to-buffer credit system.
For FCoE traffic, the Ethernet link must provide a lossless service.
Ethernet links on
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches provide two mechanisms to ensure lossless transport for FCoE traffic:
link-level flow control and priority flow control.
IEEE 802.3x link-level flow control allows a congested receiver to
signal the far end to pause the data transmission for a short period of time.
The pause functionality is applied to all the traffic on the link.
The priority flow control (PFC) feature applies pause functionality to
specific classes of traffic on the Ethernet link. For example, PFC can provide
lossless service for the FCoE traffic and best-effort service for the standard
Ethernet traffic. PFC can provide different levels of service to specific
classes of Ethernet traffic (using IEEE 802.1p traffic classes).
Data Center I/O Consolidation
I/O consolidation allows a single network
technology to carry IP, SAN, and IPC traffic. FCoE is the single network
technology that allows I/O consolidation. The upper Fibre Channel layers are
unchanged, so the Fibre Channel operational model is maintained. FCoE network
management and configuration is similar to a native Fibre Channel network.
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches use FCoE to carry Fibre Channel and Ethernet traffic on the same
physical Ethernet connection between the switch and the server. At the server,
the connection terminates to a converged network adapter (CNA). The adapter
presents two interfaces to the server’s operating system (OS): one Ethernet NIC
interface and one Fibre Channel host bus adapter (HBA) interface.
The server OS is not aware of the FCoE
encapsulation (see the following figure). At the switch, the incoming Ethernet
port separates the Ethernet and Fibre Channel traffic (using EtherType to
differentiate the frames). Ethernet frames and Fibre Channel frames are
switched to their respective network-side interfaces.
Figure 1. I/O Consolidation
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches provide quality of service (QoS) capabilities to ensure lossless or
best-effort service across the switch. For Fibre Channel traffic (FCoE) you
should apply the lossless QoS classes. By default, best-effort service is
applied to all of the Ethernet traffic. You can configure different QoS levels
for specific classes of Ethernet traffic.
Virtual Interfaces
When FCoE is enabled, a physical Ethernet cable
carries traffic for a logical Fibre Channel connection.
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switch uses virtual interfaces to represent the logical Fibre Channel
connections. For configuration purposes, virtual Fibre Channel interfaces are
implemented as Layer 2 subinterfaces of the physical Ethernet interface.
Ethernet features (such as the link debounce timer
and VLAN membership) are configured on the physical Ethernet interface. Logical
Fibre Channel features (such as VSAN membership) are configured on the virtual
Fibre Channel interfaces.
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch Hardware
Chassis
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
includes the
Cisco Nexus 5010
and
Cisco Nexus 5020
switches.
The
Cisco Nexus 5010
switch is a 1 RU chassis and the
Cisco Nexus 5020
switch is a 2 RU chassis designed for rack mounting. The chassis supports
redundant fans and power supplies.
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switching fabric is low latency, nonblocking, and supports Ethernet frame sizes
from 64 to 9216 bytes.
Refer to the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Hardware
Installation Guide for hardware configuration details.
Expansion Modules
The
Cisco Nexus 5010
switch has one slot and the
Cisco Nexus 5020
switch has two slots for optional expansion modules. The following expansion
modules are available:
N5K-M1404 provides four 10-Gigabit Ethernet
ports and four 1/2/4-Gigabit Fibre Channel ports.
The expansion modules are field-replaceable units
(FRUs) that support online insertion and removal (OIR).
Refer to the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Hardware
Installation Guide for details about the optional expansion modules.
Fabric Extender
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switch supports the optional
Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric
Extender.
The
Fabric Extender
is a fixed configuration chassis designed to deliver additional connectivity
and is configured from the parent switch as a remote module
The
Cisco Nexus 2148T Fabric
Extender
provides 48 1-Gigabit Ethernet host interfaces and is connected to its parent
switch using four 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports.
Refer to the
Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extender
Software Configuration Guide for an overview of the
Fabric Extender
and configuration details.
Ethernet Interfaces
The
Cisco Nexus 5010 switch has 20 fixed 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports equipped with SFP+ interface adapters. The first 8 ports are switchable 1-Gigabit and 10-Gigabit ports. Up to 6 additional 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports are available on an expansion module.
The
Cisco Nexus 5020 switch has 40 fixed 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports equipped with SFP+ interface adapters. The first 16 ports are switchable 1-Gigabit and 10-Gigabit ports. Up to 12 additional 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports are available on the expansion modules.
All of the 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports support FCoE. Each port can be used as a downlink (connected to a server) or as an uplink (to the data center LAN).
Fibre Channel Interfaces
Fibre Channel ports are optional on the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch. When you use expansion modules up to 8 Fibre Channel ports are available on the
Cisco Nexus 5010 switch and up to 16 Fibre Channel ports are available on the
Cisco Nexus 5020 switch.
Each Fibre Channel port can be used as a downlink (connected to a server) or as an uplink (to the data center SAN fabric).
Management Interfaces
A
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch has two dedicated management interfaces (one serial console port and one 10/100/1000 Ethernet interface).
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switch Software
Ethernet Switching
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches are Layer 2 devices, which run
Cisco NX-OS.
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches are designed to support high-density, high-performance Ethernet
systems and provide the following Ethernet switching features:
IEEE 802.1D-2004 Rapid and Multiple Spanning
Tree Protocols (802.1w and 802.1s)
IEEE 802.1Q VLANs and trunks
IEEE 802.3ad link aggregation
Private VLANs
EtherChannels and virtual port channels (vPCs)
Traffic suppression (unicast, multicast, and
broadcast)
FCoE and Fibre Channel Switching
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches support data center I/O consolidation by providing FCoE interfaces (to the servers) and native Fibre Channel interfaces (to the SAN).
FCoE and Fibre Channel switching includes the following features:
Cisco fabric services
N-port virtualization
VSANs and VSAN trunking
Zoning
Distributed device alias service
SAN port channels
QoS
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches provide quality of service (QoS) capabilities such as traffic prioritization and bandwidth allocation on egress interfaces.
The default QoS configuration on the switch provides lossless service for Fibre Channel and FCoE traffic. QoS can be configured to provide additional classes of service for Ethernet traffic.
Virtual Port Channels
A virtual port channel (vPC) allows links that are
physically connected to two different
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches or
Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric
Extenders
to appear as a single port channel.
A vPC can provide multipathing, which allows you to create redundancy by
enabling multiple parallel paths between
nodes and load balancing traffic where alternative paths exist.
Serviceability
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch serviceability functions provide data for network planning and help to improve problem resolution time.
The switched port analyzer (SPAN) feature allows an administrator to analyze all traffic between ports by nonintrusively directing the SPAN session traffic to a SPAN destination port that has an external analyzer attached to it.
Ethanalyzer
Ethanalyzer is a
Cisco NX-OS
protocol analyzer tool based on the Wireshark (formerly Ethereal) open source
code. Ethanalyzer is a command-line version of Wireshark for capturing and
decoding packets. You can use Ethanalyzer to troubleshoot your network and
analyze the control-plane traffic.
Call Home
The Call Home feature continuously monitors hardware and software components to provide e-mail-based notification of critical system events. A versatile range of message formats is available for optimal compatibility with pager services, standard e-mail, and XML-based automated parsing applications. The feature offers alert grouping capabilities and customizable destination profiles. This feature can be used, for example, to directly page a network support engineer, send an e-mail message to a network operations center (NOC), and employ Cisco AutoNotify services to directly generate a case with the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC). This feature is a step toward autonomous system operation, which enables networking devices to inform IT when a problem occurs and helps to ensure that the problem is resolved quickly.
Online Diagnostics
Cisco generic online diagnostics (GOLD) is a suite of diagnostic facilities to verify that hardware and internal data paths are operating as designed. Boot-time diagnostics, continuous monitoring, and on-demand and scheduled tests are part of the Cisco GOLD feature set. GOLD allows rapid fault isolation and continuous system monitoring.
Switch Management
Simple Network Management Protocol
Cisco NX-OS is compliant with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) version 1, version 2, and version 3. A full set of Management Information Bases (MIBs) is supported.
Role-Based Access Control
With role-based access control (RBAC), you can limit access to switch operations by assigning roles to users. Administrators can customize access and restrict it to the users who require it.
Configuration Methods
Configuring with CLI, XML Management Interface,
or SNMP
You can configure
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches using the command-line interface (CLI), the XML management interface
over SSH, or SNMP as follows:
CLI —You can configure switches using the CLI
from an SSH session, a Telnet session, or the console port. SSH provides a
secure connection to the device.
XML Management Interface over SSH—You can
configure switches using the XML management interface, which is a programming
interface based on the NETCONF protocol that complements the CLI functionality.
For more information, see the
Cisco NX-OS XML Interfaces User Guide.
SNMP—SNMP allows you to configure switches
using Management Information Bases (MIBs).
Configuring with Cisco Data Center Network
Manager
You can configure
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches using the Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) client, which runs on a
local PC and uses the DCNM server.
For more information, see the
Cisco DCNM Configuration Guides.
Configuring with Cisco MDS Fabric Manager
You can configure
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switches using the Fabric Manager client, which runs on a local PC and uses the
Fabric Manager server.
For more information, see the
Cisco MDS 9000 and Nexus 5000 Series Fabric
Manager Software Configuration Guide for
Cisco Fabric Manager Release 4.1.
Network Security Features
Cisco NX-OS Release 4.1 includes the following security features:
Authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) and TACACS+
RADIUS
Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol Version 2
Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3)
MAC ACLs and IP ACLs, including port-based ACLs (PACLs) and VLAN-based ACLs (VACLs).
Virtual Device Contexts
Cisco NX-OS
can segment operating system and hardware resources into virtual device
contexts (VDC) that emulate virtual devices. The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switch does not support multiple VDCs. All switch resources are managed in the
default VDC.
For more information, see the
Cisco Nexus 7000 Series NX-OS Getting Started with Virtual Device
Contexts, Release 4.1.
Licensing
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switch is shipped with its licenses installed. The switch provides commands to
manage the licenses and install additional licenses.
Typical Deployment Topologies
Ethernet TOR Switch Topology
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch can be deployed as a 10-Gigabit Ethernet top-of-rack (TOR) switch, with uplinks to the data center LAN distribution layer switches. An example configuration in shown in
the following figure.
In this example, the blade server rack incorporates blade switches that support 10-Gigabit Ethernet uplinks to the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch. The blade switches do not support FCoE, so there is no FCoE traffic and no Fibre Channel ports on the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch.
In the example configuration, the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch has Ethernet uplinks to two Catalyst switches. If STP is enabled in the data center LAN, the links to one of the switches will be STP active and the links to the other switch will be STP blocked.
Figure 2.
Ethernet TOR Switch Topology
All of the server-side ports on the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch are running standard Ethernet. FCoE is not required, so the server ports are connected using 10-Gigabit Ethernet NICs.
The servers are connected to the data center SAN through MDS 9134 SAN switches. The server Fibre Channel ports require standard Fibre Channel HBAs.
Fabric Extender Deployment Topology
The following figure shows a simplfied configuration using the
Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric
Extender in combination with the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch to provide a simplified and cost-effective 1-Gigabit TOR solution.
Figure 3.
Fabric Extender Deployment Topology
In the example configuration, the
Fabric Extender top-of-rack units provide 1-Gigabit host interfaces connected to the servers. The
Fabric Extender units are attached to their parent
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches with 10-Gigabit fabric interfaces.
Each
Fabric Extender acts as a Remote I/O Module on the parent
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch. All device configurations are managed on the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switch and configuration information is downloaded using inband communication to the
Fabric Extender.
See the Cisco Nexus 2000 Series Fabric
Extender Software Configuration Guide for an overview of the
Fabric Extender and configuration details.
Data Center I/O Consolidation Topology
The following figure shows a typical I/O
consolidation scenario for the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switch.
Figure 4. I/O Consolidation Topology
The
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switch connects to the server ports using FCoE. Ports on the server require
converged network adapters. For redundancy, each server connects to both
switches. Dual-port CNA adapters can be used for this purpose. The CNA is
configured in active-passive mode, and the server needs to support server-based
failover.
On the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switch, the Ethernet network-facing ports are connected to two Catalyst 6500
Series switches. Depending on required uplink traffic volume, there may be
multiple ports connected to each Catalyst 6500 Series switch, configured as
port channels. If STP is enabled in the data center LAN, the links to one of
the switches will be STP active and the links to the other switch will be STP
blocked.
The SAN network-facing ports on the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
switch are connected to Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches. Depending on the
required traffic volume, there may be multiple Fibre Channel ports connected to
each MDS 9000 Family switch, configured as SAN port channels.
Supported Standards
The following table lists the standards supported by the
Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches.