Where Are All the Features for Nexus ? Or Is It Just Me ?

I wrote this in response to Omar Sultan at Cisco on ‘Why you want this switch ?

I was looking the NX-OS feature navigator today and NX-OS looks (currently) like a substantially feature-free platform - check out the NX-OS Feature Navigator and consider what is not listed here.

A couple of other things that strike me as odd:

• NX-OS has a primary marketing message that is based on technologies that do not yet exist (FCoE) or technology that only a few companies care much about (10GB Ethernet), or intangible elements like their new switching fabric
• Waxing lyrically about your ‘lights out sub-system’ smacks of desperation because there are not any other features to talk about.
• NX-OS remains an unknown.
• I still believe that NX-OS has been released to put a footprint in the space and slow down venture capital investments. You never know, they might have produced a product that could eat Cisco’s lunch.

Omar and Doug have a role in promoting the Nexus 7000. Lets make sure that we don’t go overboard with the markitecture. I would appreciate if they could quiet down the marketing so I can get some work done here. If another person comes up to me and asks whether I have seen the Nexus 7000 I am going to hit them with RITA.

As a long time veteran of many product releases, market announcements, platform announcements I remain deeply cynical. In some movie, a pretending person once said, “show me the money”. That’s what I want.

Postscript

I wrote more about the Nexus 7000 in a previous posting considering whether it is suitable for use today or tomorrow.