Cisco Nexus Reviews

The pros of the Cisco Nexus are the simplified integration with the data center and the end platform before building a data center.

Our primary use case of this solution is for the data centers. 

This product has improved the way our organization functions in the way that the rack-based design allowed us to eliminate chassis-based designs. The chassis design is more complicated to manage and maintain in field operations.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the ease of management.

I would like to see network function virtualization with no hardware.

I would like to see the integration of the products into something where it's seamless where an engineer never touches the switch again, never does CLI and you move to an application based network organization.

The stability of the solution needs to get a better handle on the vulnerability in recent code releases that aligns better with the DCN product. We'd like to avoid the need for continual upgrades and potential outages in our data centers and having to reboot the switches for each OS upgrade.

Cisco Nexus is stable, but then, in February of 2017, a cyberwar started. Cisco is getting hammered and we're seeing that evidence in very frequent updates to the OS system. If you have six data centers or you've got multiple locations around the world, these efforts take many months to update successfully to every device. 

When it takes us multiple months and two or three releases in the middle, we invest a lot of money in maintaining the device. The hacker community is the issue. 

The scalability is fine. 

The solution's technical support is used by my architects. I don't use it personally. 

The way that our airline works, because we've recently been in a merger, is that we're putting two big airlines together. Our primary driver has been the end-of-service lifecycle and the ability to remain PCI compliant. We must also remain compliant with cybersecurity.

We typically wait until the end of service life. As we practice this, we end up doing these refreshes and adding new architecture. We're making decisions now based on features, functionalities, and outcomes for passengers getting on planes to improve their experience.

We initially started a couple of years ago with Cisco Nexus. We started the design with 9Ks and 5Ks, we ended up reevaluating the situation features and going with more 2Ks to lower the costs for what we need. 

For the deployment, we used our staff engineers and Cisco people. We worked together with Cisco on finding the right solutions for implementing the product.

I am intimately aware of what the licensing costs are with Cisco Nexus. It depends on what we decide, how much margin, and what our strategy is when we have an intersection point to where we think won't be spending money on equipment we aren't going to use. 

I have already had conversations, here and at the five portals required to manage the licensing, with the new OS releases and the requirement to use the smart license portal. There are too many portals. We need a manager. 

Cisco Nexus is similar to other licensing costs but it's painful right now. I've sent everything to our account executive to work with for our systems integration and logistical partners. They need to solve this and help train the team. There's a big gap in there.

Cisco Nexus is very costly for the service. It's insurance in case something happens. We have a very good strategy that we're happy with, it's just the renewal process that is problematic on the license. 

When I walked through the customer experience center and explained the situation, they got a good feel for how much pain and suffering it's been. Cisco needs to understand how hard the renewals are each year for us. 

Even having the SmartNet Total Care portal, having a person dedicated to the distributors, etc. it's still a mess. If the incentives get better, which I know Cisco is working on, it would be great, right now, we're buying the license year-to-year.

We have three hundred to four hundred data centers of Nexus. So the coverage associated with Smart Net, 27 by 4, is basically what we spend each year. 

We did look at another vendor. Cisco is found around the world with good support and credibility in the industry. It was an easy choice even though the functionality from the competitor was more.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate this product an eight for the way I work with my team. They select the product, I serve them. I rate it from a perspective of what the quality of life my team has from using this product. How simple, risk-free, and smooth can we do this without putting the data centers in jeopardy.

Make sure you do your comparisons and make the right decision with the right product before you decide. I would recommend taking a good hard look at Cisco and the Nexus product line and what it could do for you.

We use the solution for the data center.

We are using the vPC and FEX. The integrations are valuable.

The pricing must be improved.

I have been using the solution for four to five years.

There are no bugs or glitches. I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

We have two to three users. I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten.

I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. The deployment requires two to three months. It’s a heavy setup. Around three to four people were involved in the setup.

I rate the pricing an eight out of ten.

We are planning to deploy Cisco ACI. Overall, I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

The solution is our aggregation switch. We have all our data services, and users (not end-users) services going through our Nexus. It connects our firewalls and it connects other switches and makes our load balances work. Basically, we were given the switch and then we configured it and we will put it in the network and we maintain it.

The solution seems to be quite stable. We have had to upgrade recently as we were on an engineering release of code, and we don't tend to have problems with the Nexus. 

You can scale the product.

Technical support seems to be okay.

The solution could be improved in general in all aspects. 

When it comes to technical assistance, you cannot speed up things. You can try to escalate, however, there's a process. You have not got them on speed dial. You need to wait.

It would be ideal if there was better integration with various other platforms. 

I've been using the solution since 2015. It's been six years.

The stability of the solution is great. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. the performance is reliable. 

The solution can scale.

The product provides services for thousands of our customers. If we look at Nexus and the media portals, then we've got millions of customers that will use the end service. That all goes through the Nexus F5.

In terms of technical support, we would go through the third party who would contact Cisco. It's fine. It works quite well at the moment. It would be nice if they could be quicker.

I did not handle any of the initial setup. I can't speak to if it was complex or straightforward. 

I can't speak to the pricing as I am not in procurement. Once it gets delivered, we'll put it in the network and then we'll configure it and then operate it. We are in operations. We don't directly handle licensing.

We are a customer and an end-user.

It's my understanding that we are using version 9, however, I cannot speak to if what we are on is the latest version or not. 

In our organization, there are hundreds of engineers. There are multiple teams. I work in a team that looks after the data center and we are on-premises, although there is also a cloud team.

From an operations perspective, when I look at service availability and the number of failures, I'd say the solution is probably about a seven out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to other users. It is tried and tested in our network, and it works well. It could work for other companies.

This solution is used in our data center. It is our layer-two switches that connect all of our servers to the data center firewall. Our data center is a little bit different than most in that we're only layer-two in the data center.

We have increased the throughput of our datacenter. Where before we had switches that were two, one-gig LAG uplinks, we now have eighty-gig. This means that the underlying, layer-two network is not going to be the bottleneck of our data center anymore. It's going to be the other peripherals like our F5 and our Palo Alto that need to be upgraded to provide more throughput.

We leverage Cisco DCNM a lot, which allows us to automate. We're working toward allowing the server administrators to configure their own ports for their new servers that they're spinning up in the data center.

Our only complaint is about the licensing because it can always be a little more cost-effective.

The scalability of this solution is great. We couldn't afford to buy the ASIC solution, so we bought the Nexus 9Ks and put them in a Spine-and-Leaf topology. We then made each of the leaves their own vPC peers as well, so it allows us to have redundancy between servers.

Our local Cisco engineer was amazing during the whole process. He assisted us many times when installing and configuring the system. He also gave us advice on DCNM and how to set it up.

We've opened one tech case where we had to replace a switch because we believed there was a port that was bad. We had the new switch within one business day, so technical support has been awesome. 

We had Cisco switches in our data center that were reaching their end-of-life in a few years. We also had other vendor switches that were coming up on end-of-life, and we as a team, with our manager, decided that we wanted a one-vendor solution. It would make troubleshooting a lot easier because we wouldn't be opening up multiple tech cases to solve problems. Cisco provided the best solution for us.

The initial setup of this solution was only complex because we didn't have Nexus switches in our data center. We had a multi-vendor data center and the Cisco switches that we did have in there were the Catalyst series. So, it was only complex for us because we were learning a new platform. After we got through the learning phase, it was very simple and easy to set up.

We handled the implementation in-house and asked our local Cisco engineer for help when needed.

We have a three-year subscription for our licensing fees. For us, this product is perfect for what we need and it came at the perfect price point.

Arista and Juniper were both on the shortlist. We bought a few Juniper QFX series switches, and we did not like the product at all. We were investigating Arista, but Cisco came in with an awesome pricing plan for us, and a data center solution that met our needs. It was a lot cheaper than Arista, which is why our manager went with that selection.

This product has absolutely surpassed our expectation of throughput. The network team used to be blamed for slowness in the data center, but now we can confidently say that it has nothing to do with us. We're providing the organization with eighty-gigs of throughput in all directions to the firewalls. Troubleshooting poorly-performing applications is easier now because we can say that the bottleneck is not in the data center. 

We could be doing much more with our Nexus 9K switches, but they are not doing as much as they are capable of because we only have layer-two in our data center. This is the way our data center was set up and how the executive team wants it to be run. In larger data centers and larger companies, they're using the full capabilities.

My recommendation for anybody who is researching this solution is to ask for a demonstration from your local Cisco support. We had an awesome support engineer who did a demo with us. He brought in four switches and set up DCNM. We got to see the benefits of how DCNM would help us. We're transitioning to more automation because we have fewer people than we did, so the DCNM product is awesome. It used to be a twenty or thirty-minute process to add a VLAN in our data center, and now it takes approximately three minutes. The Cisco DCNM and the 9K switches were the beginning, to show what we can start doing as a network team to leverage the technology that we have.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

Our primary use case for the Cisco Nexus is for a VXLAN environment with some video multicast.

I don't think we've been using Cisco Nexus long enough to know accurately how it is improving our organization. Our first deployment was about a month ago.

The most valuable features of Cisco Nexus are the performance, flexibility, configuration, and cost. It's not a traditional pricing model from Cisco. They've offered our company a considerable reduction in price. That makes Cisco Nexus now very competitive with other vendors.

One improvement needed is support for Multi-CAD scale that we were concerned about. We're not hitting any limits at this point. There were concerns about the amount of server capacity that was going to be available. We like to see things that are already there as opposed to being told where they will be. 

The stability of Cisco Nexus thus far has been excellent. We had some initial issues with some non-Cisco optics, third parties claiming compatibility when they weren't compatible.

We've not had a scale-out yet. Cisco Nexus looks very valuable. We're starting to deploy them in other environments as well.

Cisco technical support for the 9000 is good. During our issues, we had excellent technical support. The support issues required around 40 hours. We had Cisco engineers available for the entire time. It was impressive.

In the production of our network, we've grown in scale, and that's really what it came down to. Previously we wouldn't have thought that a Nexus product was comparable to some of the other vendors, like Arista and Juniper. But the features of the 9000 brought it into line with the capabilities of other vendors that we used.

The setup is straightforward. Nexus uses options that our engineers are familiar with. The advantages were that we could leverage the knowledge that we already had.

On a scale of 1-10, I would rate it a 9. Cisco is very competitive with the other companies that are out there. I would recommend them. We've had very good luck.

Cisco is a leader. They help us with the deployment at a lower cost.

We use Cisco Nexus on our server-side. We use the product for the access switches layer. We basically take a look at the actual DNA center, however, it will be a time until we will implement the agent from Cisco again.

The solution is very easy to use.

It can implement with 40-gigabit plus technologies and gives us enormous speed. What was the one gigabit per second ten years ago, is now 10 gigabits per second. The future is likely to be 400 gigabits per second. Cisco is on its way there.

The huge capacity of Nexus is excellent.

All the frames are managed on the assets, not on software, which makes things easier. It is essentially dedicated circuit hardware, an integrated circuit for certain tasks.

We can see the functionality of the switches. The policies are very clear.

The mean time between failures and TBF value is very, very high on Cisco Nexus.

The initial setup is quite simple and straightforward.

I'm not in a good position to comment on what might be lacking. I just use the Nexus switches, and I'm very happy to use the machines.

A lot of technologies and features are present on Cisco Nexus and I haven't had a chance to dive into all of them just yet.

We had some issues, strange issues with our firewall from Cisco, however, we resolved them with Cisco. They were very, very strange issues indeed. However, they seem to originate only on our site, and not from Nexus. From my point of view, I've never seen in 20 years, a single breakdown.

They should work to make the pricing more reasonable for the local market.

The stability is excellent. I haven't witnessed a breakdown. Cisco is very reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. The performance is excellent.

The solution can scale. We use it for a rather large organization.

We have just over 4,000 employees and around 20,000 active ports. Our operation is big enough that it spreads over half of Romania.

The support on offer is excellent. Everyone is helpful and responsive. We get the answers we need and support is full of ideas in terms of how to tackle issues. We're quite satisfied with them overall.

The initial setup is not too diffcult. I wouldn't describe it as complex. It's quite straightforward to execute. We simply program it over the CLI, command-line interface, and it's pretty easy to do.

The pricing is a little bit high, however, we didn't use all the facilities and when we pay for a license, we pay a lot. That said, we only use a little bit from those licenses. In the local market, this solution is considered pricey. It might be fair pricing from the point of view of Cisco, however, it may be too high from the point of view of Romanian companies.

Right now, we should upgrade our wireless LAN controller, the controller WLC, and that means that we should switch to another assembly controller and we will lose all the licenses that we already have on the actual WLCs. It's not an easy decision.

In general, Cisco products are excellent and we've been really happy with them.

I'd rate the solution, on a scale from one to ten, at a perfect ten.

We really lag on the AC infrastructure where the configuration and the changes make a difference in terms of troubleshooting.

The product improves us when we see an expert and L1/L2 engineers for support. We have a dependency there. A simple configuration makes a big difference. It can create more chaos inside the network. We need to make sure when we make changes in one platform and it impacts other platforms, that the technical problems don't reach the end users.

There should be better certifications. More training should be provided before we get into this product.

We are just migrating to Cisco Nexus as a newer product. We are looking for similar features in Arista. We are closing the gap from Cisco ASA to an Arista ASA environment. This gives us a very stable network when compared to Cisco.

I get very good support from Cisco. The response was very fast when compared to other vendors. 

I advise anyone to invest in a new solution because we do a periodic refresh every three years. For any product we buy, we ensure it is in the warranty and it is the leader in the market. 

We go through the Gartner studies to understand the leaders in the market. Then, we get the solutions from the partners and go over them. We do a case study with the other competitive companies on the product they use and their experience with it.

The setup was very easy, but managing it in operations was very complex. The VLANs are different. We have a network outside and inside of the ASA infrastructure.

It is not possible to provide privileged access to L1 or L2 engineers. If you provide L3 access, there is a chance that they mess up the network by making smaller changes that you don't want. 

We implemented Cisco Nexus through a consultant.

Another option was Aruba Networks.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate this product a 6 or 5. The reason is that we are into Cisco for a long time. They have been very good supporters since we began the network environment.

For any technology on the education part, for the training and decisions, there are more resources available than when compared to other partner products. Planning technology through Cisco for our training sessions and getting it implemented with other products is what we do now.

Currently, we are assessing the leaders in the market for the data-container environment and SD-WAN solutions. VeloCloud was suggested by colleagues of neighbor companies.

We primarily use the solution as a switch. We use it for our data center.

Cisco Nexus is a very powerful switch. 

We don't have any problems with Nexus, ever. It's very stable. We have been, for almost five years, using Nexus, and it has been virtually problem-free. 

It's smooth to use and very, very user-friendly. 

The GUI is very, very easy to maintain.

It's very easy to log in.

The reporting is quite good. It's easy to understand. 

Technical support has been very, very helpful and they offer good SLAs.

The scalability of the product is very good.

The solution is more expensive than other options on the market. HPE, for example, is a more affordable option. 

The renewal of support is quite expensive. 

We've used the solution for about five years at this point. It's been a while. 

The stability is great. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's 100% reliable. We've never had issues. 

The solution is very easy to scale out. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so.

Technical support from Cisco is more than enough. It's very, very good. They are very fast and responsive and also very easy to understand. The response is good. We don't have issues with after-sales support Cisco. The SLA, service license agreement, is very, very good.

That said, the renewal for full support is very expensive for us. 

I did not handle the initial setup myself as I am not an engineer. Someone else handled that part. Therefore, I can't speak to how easy or difficult it might be. My colleague is much more versed in installation protocols. 

The solution, in general, is a bit pricey, and you need to pay extra for support, which can also be expensive. 

We're just a customer and an end-user. 

I would recommend using Cisco Nexus for those who want good performance, premium support, and easy maintenance. Cisco Nexus is a stable product in Indonesia. If a company is in the banking, oil and gas, or telecom industries, they should look into this product.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.