The Cisco^® Nexus 7000 Switches Supervisor Module (Figure 1) scales the control plane and data plane services for the Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches system in scalable data center networks.

Figure 1.      Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches Supervisor Module

Product Overview

The Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches comprise a modular data center-class product line designed for highly scalable 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks with a fabric architecture that scales beyond 15 terabits per second (Tbps). Designed to meet the requirements of the most mission- critical data centers, it delivers continuous system operation and virtualized, pervasive services. The Cisco Nexus 7000 Switches is based on a proven operating system, with enhanced features to deliver real-time system upgrades with exceptional manageability and serviceability. Its innovative design is purpose built to support end-to-end data center connectivity, consolidating IP, storage, and interprocess communication (IPC) networks onto a single Ethernet fabric.

The Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisor Module is designed to deliver scalable control plane and management functions for the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series chassis. It is based on a dual core processor that scales the control plane by harnessing the flexibility and power of the dual cores. The supervisors control the Layer 2 and 3 services, redundancy capabilities, configuration management, status monitoring, power and environmental management, and more. It provides centralized arbitration to the system fabric for all line cards. The fully distributed forwarding architecture allows the supervisor to support transparent upgrades to higher forwarding capacity- capable I/O and fabric modules. The supervisor incorporates an innovative dedicated connectivity management processor (CMP) to support remote management and troubleshooting of the complete system. Two supervisors are required for a fully redundant system, with one supervisor module running as the active device and the other in hot standby mode, providing exceptional high-availability features in data center-class products.

Features and Benefits

Supervisor Module

The Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisor Module delivers a comprehensive set of features to address the needs of the most demanding data center deployments.

• Continuous system operation

◦     Active and standby supervisor

◦     Segmented and redundant out-of-band provisioning and management paths

◦     Virtualization of the management plane

◦     Integrated diagnostics and protocol decoding with an embedded control plane packet analyzer

• Upgradeable architecture

◦     Fully decoupled control plane and data plane with no hardware forwarding on the module

◦     Distributed forwarding architecture, allowing independent upgrades of the supervisor and fabric Unified Fabric ready

◦     Transparent upgrade capacity and capability; designed to support 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet

• Superior operational efficiency

◦     System locator and beacon LEDs for simplified operations

◦     Dedicated out-of-band management processor for ‘lights out’ management

Supervisor Connectivity Management Processor (CMP)

The CMP provides a complete out-of-band management and monitoring capability independent from the primary operating system. The CMP enables ‘lights out’ remote monitoring and management of the supervisor module, all modules and the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series system without the need for separate terminal servers with the associated additional complexity and cost. The CMP delivers the remote control through its own dedicated processor, memory, and boot flash memory and a separate Ethernet management port. The CMP can reset all system components, including power supplies; it can also reset the host supervisor module to which it is attached, allowing a complete system restart.

Table 1 summarizes the features and benefits of the Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisor Module.

Table 1.       Features and Benefits

Note:    Not all Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisor Module features are enabled in the first software release. Refer to the release notes for up-to-date software version information to see what features are supported.

Supervisor redundancy

Two supervisor modules are required in a Cisco Nexus 7000 system for high availability with active standby redundancy, where one supervisor module is operationally active, and the standby device serves as a hot backup. Out-of-band access to both supervisors is available from either CMP.

Advanced diagnostics and troubleshooting tools

Management of large-scale data center networks requires proactive management tools to verify connectivity and mechanisms for capturing and analyzing traffic. The Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisor Module incorporates highly advanced analysis and debugging capabilities. The Power- On Self-Test (POST) and Cisco Generic Online Diagnostics (GOLD) provide proactive health monitoring both at startup and during system operation. The supervisor module uniquely provides a built-in packet capture and protocol decoding tool that allows analysis of control plane traffic to improve network planning, provide faster operation response times to events, and reduce operating costs.

Figure 2 shows supervisor module connectivity and indicators.

Figure 2.      Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisor Module Connectivity and Indicators

Product Specifications

Table 2 lists the specifications for the Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisor Module.

Table 2.       Product Specifications

Software Requirements

The Cisco Nexus 7000 Supervisor Module is supported in Cisco NX-OS Software. The minimum software version is Cisco NX-OS Software Release 4.0 or later.

Ordering Information

To place an order, visit the Cisco Ordering homepage. To download software, visit the Cisco Software Center. Table 3 provides ordering information.

Table 3.       Ordering Information

 Nexus 7000 - Supervisor, Includes External 8GB Log Flash # N7K-SUP1