Network Virtualization appliance for 2011: Nexus 1010

Network Virtualization appliance for 2011: Nexus 1010

Cisco equipment are most known more in network infrastructure,  Cisco is a multinational corporation with its headquarters located in place called San Jose in California USA. This company is into offering various products in the field of architecture, hardware, software, Voice over internet protocol services, software, and networking services. Thus Cisco is a company which has its foot print in various fields. This article would be discussing regarding a product of the Cisco systems in the field of networking called Cisco Nexus 1010. Although The Nexus 1010 is a network device, it plays a massive role in Virtualise infrastructure.

The Cisco Nexus 1010 can be considered under the category of virtual services appliance. Virtual services refer to a creation of anything in its virtual form. For example creation of operating system and network resources can be considered as virtual services. With Cisco Nexus 1010, a good hardware platform would be provided for the executing the services of virtual infrastructuree. Cisco Nexus 1010 is the latest member of the Cisco Nexus 1000V Series switches. This virtual appliance plays a big role in VMware virtualization solution. This equipment help you create a  robust and resilient network infrsatructure  that support VMware virtual services. The best combination is the usage VMware vSphere 5.0 and Cisco Nexus 1010, you will be able to create VXLAN which is a concept we will be reviewing very soon.

Why Virtualise your Network Infrastructure?

People virtualise their Network infrastructure for the following reasons: consolidation, containment, availability, but most importantly Financial cost reduction that can be between 50 to 60%. The cost reduction on  Human resources is around 33% reduction in routine administration tasks and  up to 80% reduction in datacentre costs this is huge.  You can virtualise many  infrastructure services: Compute, Storage and Network.

Cisco Nexus 1000V is integrated within VMware virtual platform and has a network analysis module which is developed by the Cisco systems. Here the Cisco Nexus 1000V allows the users to dive deep onto the operational visibility into its switch deployments.  This switch deployment is software that is developed to allow the network infrastructure administrators to gain access to the Cisco virtual network link services. Virtual machines that are hosted on the server would use the services, like it was a physical device. Cisco Nexus 1010 which is a stable hardware of Cisco Nexus 1000V is distributed into components. The two components are Virtual Ethernet Module and Virtual Supervisor module. A fact about Cisco Nexus 1010 is that, it can host 4 virtual supervisor modules, with each module you will have an active and standby supervisor module with zero downtime  feature, whereby if one module failed the other module will kick in seamlessly.

Virtual Ethernet module refers to the module which hosts the virtual Ethernet. In virtual Ethernet, the Ethernet physical cards are not used in the network infrsatructure. Instead using the memory and the processor speeds, the LAN communication is accomplished, just like the servers where connected to a physical switch in order for them to communicate. Virtual supervisor module refers to the module that supervises the various virtual machines hosted in the server to make sure that the communications between devices happens flawlessly.

There are many benefits offered by introducing such a hardware platform. And a few of the benefits of introducing Cisco Nexus 1010 are mentioned below: -

• It provides a stable platform for the working of Cisco Nexus 1000V network analysis module.
• It also hosts up to 4 virtual machines at the same time. This allows better spread of operations by using Cisco Nexus 1010.
• The Cisco Nexus 1010 acts as a base for a stable virtual infrastructure and services by the company.
• Cisco Nexus 1010 is like a alternative to the problems faced by the network administrators in Cisco Nexus 1000V. Here the Cisco Nexus 1010 would allow the installation of virtual supervisor module instead of having it under virtual appliance.
• The network teams find it very easy to switch hardware using Cisco Nexus 1010.
•  Cisco Nexus 1010 makes the installation of Cisco Nexus 1000V just like the installation of switches. Thus the installation gets simple with Cisco Nexus 1010.
• Cisco Nexus 1010 has introduced over 16 new advanced functionality in the last version that is being used  with VMware 5.0 which will blow any purist mind on what can be achieved now with server virtualisation.
• Cisco Nexus 1010 is build on Cisco NX-OS, which is more advanced than the normal IOS.
• Support of Network I/O Control with VMware 5.0
• Built in Virtual Security gateway that will secure your Virtual infrastructure.
• Virtual Interface Card Qos configuration with Cisco Nexus 1010.

Out of all network infrastructure in Virtual datacentre configuration we have tested Cisco Nexus 1010 seems to be the best device for price/performance comparison on 10G  uplink networks for storage,  10G networks are  really the norm in the infrastructure network design for datacentre built in 2011.

Best Network Infrastructure Virtual Appliance for 2011.