Cisco Nexus Hardware Architecture Detail

In this blog, we will particularly discuss about Cisco Nexus 7000 series switch its hardware architecture, device installation, and Administration features.

As a part of our Cisco Data Center training, this article is designed to inform you about the Cisco Nexus series 7000 switches. We will learn various 7000 series switches like 7000, 7009, 7010, and others.

A few main objectives of this blog article are given below:

1. Describe the Cisco Nexus 7000 Switch chassis.

2. Describe the supervisor module and I/O module features, fabric module capacity, and redundancy capability.

3. Describe VOQ operation

4. Describe packet flow and arbitration across the fabrics

5. Describe key features of the Cisco Nexus 7000 Switch power supplies and fan cooling systems

6. Describe key hardware high-availability features.

Cisco Nexus 7000 Switch chassis

*With 10 Gigabit M1 or F1 I/O Modules

** With 1 Gigabit M1 or 1/10 Gigabit F2 I/O Modules

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Cisco Nexus 7009 Switch chassis

It consists of different components such as

In Front:

● Supervisor slots (1-2)

● Optional front doors

● I/O slots (3-9)

● Locking ejector levers

● Summary LEDs

● Fabric Modules

● Integrated Cable Management

In Rear:

● Power Supplies

● Fan tray

Cisco Nexus 7010 Switch chassis

It consists of different components such as:

In Front:

● System Status LEDs

● Integrated Cable Management with Door

● Lockable Front Doors (Removable)

● Supervisor Slots (5-6)

● I/O Slots (1-4, 7-10)

● Air Intake with Optional Filter

In Rear:

● Air Exhaust

● Two system Fan trays

● Two fabric Fan trays

● Fabrics Modules (Upto 5)

● Power Supplies (upto 3)

Cisco Nexus 7018 Switch chassis

It consists of different components such as:

In Front:

● System Status LEDs

● Supervisor Slots (9-10)

● I/O Slots (1-8)

● Air Intake

In Rear:

● System Fan trays

● Fabrics Modules (Upto 5)

● 5- kW Power Supplies (upto 4)

Supervisor Modules, I/O Modules, and Fabric Modules

Moving on to Supervisor Modules, there are mainly 3 types of Supervisor module

● Sup 1

● Sup 2

● Sup 2e

The supervisor module is compatible with Cisco Nexus 7009, 7010, and 7018

Interfaces

● Supervisor management port: 10/100/1000 Mb/s Ethernet port

● CMP management port: 10/100/1000 Mb/s Ethernet port

● Console serial port: RJ-45 connector

● Auxiliary serial port: RJ-45 connector

● Three USB ports: Two host and one device port for peripheral devices

Memory:

● DRAM: 8 GB

● Flash memory: 2 GB

● NVRAM: 2-MB battery backup

It consists of the following elements:

● Beacon LED

● Console

● AUX

● Management Ethernet

● CompactFlash

● USB Ports

● CMP Ethernet

The second-generation Cisco Nexus 7000 series Supervisor Modules

1. Supervisor modules are compatible with Cisco Nexus 7009, 7010 and 7018

2. Interfaces

● Supervisor management port: 10/100/1000 Mb/s Ethernet port

● Console serial port: RJ-45 connector

It mainly consists of the following elements:

● Beacon LED

● Console Serial Port

● Management Ethernet

● USB host ports

● USB Log Flash

● USB slot 0

● USB Flash Reset

● Board Reset Button

Cisco Nexus 7000 Product Identification Scheme

N7K – C7010 – FAB – 1

1-4 = (N7K-) Nexus 7000 family and series identifier

5 = (C) – Chassis and Chassis-dependent modules

6-9 = Chassis model

10 – Dash

10 – 16 – Defines chassis- dependent modules

= (FAB) – Fabric modules

= (FAN) – Fans

= (S) – System bundle

 N7 K – M1 32 XP – 12

In the above example,

● N7 stands for family name

● K stands for Series ID

● M1 stands for FE type. Gen

● 32 stands for ports

● XP stands for speed

● 1 stands for series of fabric

● 2 stands for number of fabric cards for full bandwidth; no redundancy

 N7K-M132XP – 12 10Gigabit Interface Rate Modes

● Mode configurable on per-port-group basis:

Port groups consist of four contiguous odd or even interfaces (for examples, {1,3,5,7}. {2,4,6,8}, {9,11,13,15}.                 and so on)

● Shared mode

All four interfaces in the port group share a 10 Gb bandwidth

● Dedicated mode

One interface gets 10 Gb bandwidth

Three other interfaces in the port group are disabled

Dedicated mode interfaces: 1, 2, 9, 10, 17, 18, 25, 26.

To learn about more such Cisco concepts and get the training you can check out our IT infrastructure courses.