Top 10 Features of NX-OS 7.2.0(D1) for the Nexus 7000/7700

Today Cisco release the new NX-OS 7.2.0(D1) for the Nexus 7K with some nice features. Before I show the Top 10 of feature, you can download the image via : bit.ly/1RfHxY5

10 : Support for the Nexus 7702

The Nexus 7702 is the new (small) chassis of the Nexus 7K range. See my post bit.ly/1IIDNi6 for more details.

9 : NX-OS Patching

Why reboot a sup when only a small piece of code was changed ? With patching only a small piece of code will be changed without any reboot. You can do this on the fly. Faster, Zero Impact Caveat Corrections

8 :ITD : Intelligent Traffic Director

You need some L4-L7 load balancing, just use ITD. In this release of NX-OS it got more scale. This feature is now in almost every Nexus that Cisco is providing. Really nice for webservers etc.

7 : MACSEC over FabricPath

Improved Security when using FabricPath

6 : FEX dual-homing (active/active)

When you have a host connected to two Fex, it’s a discussion if you need dual-homing. When a host is only connect with one ethernet connection and you want to minimize the Single Point of Failure, a lot of customers are thinking that the FEX should be dual homed…. When a host is single connected that is the SPOF…. But hey.. The feature is now also available for the N7K.

5 : 2300 FEX support on N7K

The new 2300 FEX is capable of Unified Ports, 40Gb etc. It’s the successor of the Nexus 2200 devices.

4 : LISP on F3 10/40/100G modules

LISP is something a lot of customers are looking at and right now the F3 cards are supporing LISP. It’s now the Highest Performance LISP Switch on the market

3 : NXAPI with JSON/XML Format

Automate, Automate, Automate. That’s the future. But how to automate ? Just use scripting and with the NX-API you can talk to the Nexus. Programmatic access to Nexus switches over HTTP/S (returns output in easy to read JSON format)

2 :FCoE on F3 10G/40G

Why use 32Gb FC when the 40G FCoE is way faster ! Due to the fact that the clock rate of the 40Gb FCoE is way different then FC, you really really get 40 Gb FCoE !!!

1 : L3 over vPC

Before this feature we had to design some workarounds about the designs some customers wanted to have. L3 over vPC is now possible. Hooray !!!