Today marks an important milestone for one of our most strategic data center products and the foundation of virtual networking portfolio. Five years ago, the Nexus 1000V virtual switch was the pioneer in the virtual networking market with its launch at VMworld in 2008. Since then it has been adopted by over 8000 customers and continues to grow on other platforms, such as Microsoft Hyper-V, and soon Linux/KVM. Today, Nexus 1000V represents the largest software controller-based networking solution (aka, Software Defined Networking or SDN) in the industry.
We continue to add hundreds of paying customers every quarter, in spite of offering a fully featured no-cost essential edition. The interest in the virtual networking space also continues to increase ever since the SDN trend started. There are also plenty of FUD or rumors being spread about the Cisco's virtual networking solution. On this 5thyear anniversary, let's do some myth busting focused on Nexus 1000V based solutions.
Myth 1: Nexus 1000V is just a virtual switch
Myth 2: Nexus 1000V does not provide network virtualization
With all these market leading milestones, Nexus 1000V is the leading network virtualization platform in the market and this myth is dead on arrival.
Myth 3: Nexus 1000V is not designed for automation
Nexus 1000V was initially targeted at networking admins through their familiar NX-OS CLI commands and has supported XML/netconf interfaces from day one. A number of our customers are using the CLI and XML interfaces for provisioning and managing their Nexus 1000V deployments. The platform has since evolved to include REST APIs for automation and includes support for Power Shell for the Microsoft Hyper-V platform. Nexus 1000V also integrates into various orchestration platforms like VMware vCloud Director, Microsoft SCVMM, OpenStack and Cisco UCS Director. In addition, Nexus 1000V is integrated with Cisco's Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) for ease of management. So again, another myth busted.
Myth 4: Nexus 1000V is tightly coupled to Cisco's Hardware
Nexus 1000V is based on the world's most widely deployed Data Center network operating system- Cisco NX-OS. This provides feature consistency and stability based on our large install base and reduces learning curves for the vast majority of networking professionals out there. But, Nexus 1000V can still be deployed independent of our physical Cisco Nexus switches or UCS servers, on any infrastructure or network from any vendor. With the recently announced Dynamic Fabric Automation (DFA) and Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) fabric architectures, Nexus 1000V continues to differentiate over commodity vSwitches. This integration makes Cisco the only vendor who can provide end-to-end data center solution involving the whole network- both physical and virtual.
Now that the myths are busted, let us review why Nexus 1000V is the most desirable virtual switching and L3-7 services platform:
After reading this, If you are interested in Nexus 1000V, it is offered in two flavors. The FREE Essential edition includes all the features like VXLAN and vPath required for a top end cloud networking deployment. You can download it here and get support from the community. You can also choose the Advanced edition which includes additional security related features, as well as free licenses for Virtual Security Gateway and VXLAN -VLAN gateway products.
Finally if you are attending VMworld 2013, please make sure you attend our sessions -PHC6409 and NET6380.