United States
Q
What is the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series switch?
A
The Cisco Nexus 7000 Series is a modular, high-performance data center switch that delivers scalable Layer 2/3 connectivity, high availability, and advanced virtualization features for mission-critical environments.
Q
What core use cases are best suited for Nexus 7000 switches?
A
Nexus 7000 switches excel as data center core and aggregation devices, supporting large-scale virtualization, converged networking, multi-tenant fabrics, and high-density 10/40/100 GbE deployments.
Q
How does Nexus 7000 ensure high availability?
A
Nexus 7000 offers redundant supervisors, power supplies, fans and fabric modules, hot-swappable components, and ISSU (In Service Software Upgrade) for zero-downtime maintenance.
Q
How many Virtual Device Contexts (VDCs) can I create?
A
Each Nexus 7000 chassis supports up to eight VDCs, enabling secure, isolated logical switches within a single physical platform.
Q
What is the maximum switching capacity of Nexus 7000?
A
A fully populated Nexus 7000 chassis delivers up to 55 Tbps of non-blocking switching capacity and up to 16 Bpps forwarding performance.
Q
Which line cards and supervisor modules are compatible?
A
Nexus 7000 supports multiple line cards (1/10/40/100 GbE) and Supervisor modules (Sup1, Sup2, Sup2T, Sup2E) for flexible performance and feature upgrades.
Q
What power and cooling options are available?
A
The Nexus 7000 offers AC, DC and mixed-mode power supplies, N+1 redundant fans, and variable-speed airflow controls to optimize power efficiency and thermal management.
Q
How does Nexus 7000 support Layer 2 and Layer 3 services?
A
Nexus 7000 delivers comprehensive Layer 2 features (VLAN, STP, VPC) and Layer 3 routing protocols (OSPF, BGP, EIGRP, VRF) for flexible network architectures.
Q
What multicast capabilities are provided?
A
Nexus 7000 supports PIM-SM, PIM-DM, IGMP v2/v3, MSDP, and BSR for scalable, reliable IP multicast in enterprise and service provider networks.
Q
How do I perform a software upgrade on Nexus 7000?
A
Use the resident hot-patch or ISSU process: stage the new NX-OS image in flash, validate compatibility, and upgrade supervisors sequentially to maintain traffic continuity.
Q
What security features are built into Nexus 7000?
A
Nexus 7000 includes Control Plane Policing, ACLs, port security, MACsec encryption, TACACS+ and RADIUS authentication, and secure boot with image signing.
Q
What licensing options exist for Nexus 7000?
A
Licensing tiers include LAN Enterprise, SAN Enterprise, and Feature On Demand (FOD) for advanced services such as OTV, VXLAN, and telemetry.
Q
How is Quality of Service (QoS) implemented?
A
Nexus 7000 provides hierarchical QoS with shaping, policing, classification, and priority queuing to guarantee SLAs for critical applications.
Q
How does Nexus 7000 integrate with Cisco ACI?
A
Nexus 7000 supports ACI Border Leaf roles, enabling policy-based automation, multi-pod fabrics, and seamless integration into ACI domains via the APIC controller.
Q
What management interfaces are available?
A
Management options include CLI, NX-API/REST, SNMP, NetConf/YANG, SPAN, and out-of-band Ethernet or serial console access.
Q
What monitoring and telemetry capabilities are included?
A
Nexus 7000 offers model-driven telemetry, sFlow, ERSPAN, NetFlow, and built-in performance counters for real-time visibility and analytics.
