Cisco Expands Nexus Switch Portfolio for Cloud Networks

As workloads continue to move to the cloud, Cisco Systems (CSCO) is trying to provide the networking infrastructure necessary to make those workloads run smoothly. At Cisco Partner Summit this week, the networking vendor unveiled the latest products in the Nexus switch line; and they’re designed specifically for application-centric and cloud infrastructure.

Included in the announcement are:

• The Cisco Nexus 9504 and 9516 switches. Additions to the Nexus 9000 portfolio, the switches were designed to be scalable, programmable, energy-efficient and high-performance data center switches for cloud, Big Data and other complex applications. The new switches also include backplane-free modular features with 15 percent more efficient power and cooling and a simpler design that Cisco noted improves the mean time between failures with 2.8 times higher reliability.
• The Cisco Nexus 3164Q switch. An addition to the Nexus 3000 line, the 3164Q was designed to be ultra-dense and high-performance with the ability to deliver flexible connectivity for either 40Gbps or 10Gbps ports in a 2U NX-OS feature set.

“Through automation and programmability embedded within our NX-OS platforms, training, support and certifications, we are empowering over 2 million networking engineers and thousands of channel partners worldwide to enable our enterprise, commercial, service provider and cloud customers to expand their skill sets while embracing on-premise private and hybrid cloud models with ACI in the data center and across the access and WAN,” said Soni Jiandani, a senior vice president at Cisco Systems, in a prepared statement. “Cisco is driving opportunities for our partners to build their practices and enable customers a smooth journey to the cloud.”

And the timing for the new Nexus switches couldn’t be better, as Cisco itself is finally getting itself into the cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) game to take on incumbents in the space including Amazon Web Services.