You may have read about the network automation and simplification angle of next week's Cisco Live conference in Orlando. There will be a big data center emphasis as well.
. We've heard they may be unveiling their switch, which sources say is called the Nexus 9000 and is based on Broadcom's Trident 2 silicon rather than custom ASICs, which Insieme founders Mario Mazzola, Luca Cafiero and Prem Jain specialize in.
If true, Insieme would start off not much better than Juniper's QFabric, which reportedly had to roll back to merchant silicon after custom ASICs couldn't perform up to task. But then, would the Nexus 9000 actually be the product of Insieme if it did not have Insieme silicon?
Cisco would not confirm this information on the Nexus 9000. But we do have a date to speak with Insieme Senior Vice President Soni Jiandani on Wednesday.
Cisco is also expected to roll out another new data center switch next week - the 83Tbps Nexus 7700. The 7700 is said by sources to have the same chassis configuration as two of the the Nexus 7000 switches - 10- and 18-slot - but without backward compatibility to the 7000's existing M1- and F1-series line cards. Instead, F3-series line cards may debut with the 7700, sporting 24x40G and 12x100G interfaces
Sources say the 7700 will house six fabric cards instead of the 7000's five. The 10-slot 7710 will have a switching capacity of 21/42Tbps, they say, and these port densities:
The current Nexus 7010 supports up to 384x1G and 10G Ethernet ports, 48x40G and 16x100G.
The 18-slot 7718 chassis will have a switching capacity of 42/83Tbps and support 768x10G, 384x40G and 192x100G, compared to the 7018's 768x1 and 10G, 96x40G and 32x100G Ethernet ports. The Nexus 7018 has a switching capacity of 15Tbps.
Programming interfaces on the 7700 include XML; Scriptable command-line interface; Cisco DCNM web services; Python; Tool Command Language; Cisco IOS Embedded Event Manager; Cisco Open Network Environment (ONE) Platform Kit, aka OnePK; and OpenFlow. The switch will run NX-OS 6.2 or later.
Again, Cisco would not confirm this information on the Nexus 7700. And there is some specualtion that the Nexus 7700 is an Insieme product. We will provide updates from the conference next week.
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