Cisco NX-OS Capabilities

The Cisco NX-OS network operating system’s key capabilities include the following:

• Architectural flexibility
  • Support for Layer 3 (v4/v6) unicast and multicast routing protocol suites such as BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, PIM-SM, SSM, and MDSP.
  • Support for VXLAN EVPN overlay fabrics, including VXLAN EVPN vPC fabric peering for an enhanced dual-homing access solution.
• Extensive programmability
  • Support for day-zero automation through Power-On Auto Provisioning (POAP), which streamlines the deployment of production fabrics down to minutes.
  • Support for DevOps configuration-management applications, including Ansible, Chef, Puppet, and SaltStack.
  • Pervasive APIs for all-switch CLI functions with NX-API (JSON-based RPC over HTTP/HTTPs).
  • Comprehensive software development kit for custom Cisco NX-OS applications with NX-SDK in Python, Go, and C++.
  • Support for modular and secure application integration architecture such as Secure LXC and Docker application-hosting options natively on Cisco NX-OS.
• Pervasive visibility
  • Support for a flexible NetFlow feature that enables enhanced network anomalies and security detection.
  • Support for monitoring real-time flows, flow paths, and latency, which allows organizations to gain invaluable visibility into their fabrics with Cisco Nexus Insights.
• Modularity, network resiliency, and high availability
  • Enables service-level high availability with (a) process isolation and (b) process restartability. Process isolation provides a highly fault-tolerant software infrastructure and fault isolation between the services. Cisco NX-OS processes run in protected memory spaces that are independent of each other and the kernel. Process restartability ensures that process-level failures do not cause system-level failure.
  • Enables system-level high availability by supporting physical redundancy (power, fan, system controller, supervisor, and fabric).
  • Supports nondisruptive, zero-packet-loss upgrades using In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU), enhanced ISSU, graceful insertion and removal (GIR), and Software Maintenance Upgrade (SMU) packages or RPM patches.
  • Support for Cisco vPC and equal-cost multipath (ECMP).
• Security and services
  • Strong line-rate encryption capability and secure communication on Ethernet links with MACsec (hop-by-hop encryption).
  • MAC Authentication Bypass (MAB) to authorize a supplicant based on the supplicant MAC address.
• Network modeling
  • Cisco Nexus 9000v switch (virtual NX-OS), with both 9300 and 9500 form factors, extends automation and operational models for DevOps and NetOps integration, with images built for Vagrant, VMware ESXi, KVM, and Fusion.
  • Extensive support for Nexus 9000v is available in Cisco Virtual Internet and Routing Lab (Cisco VIRL) and Cisco Modeling Labs (CML).
• Closed-loop automation with Cisco DCNM
  • Accelerates provisioning from days to minutes and simplifies deployments from day zero through day N using Cisco DCNM, the network management platform for all Cisco NX-OS-enabled deployments.
  • Reduces troubleshooting cycles with real-time graphical operational visibility for topology, network fabric, and infrastructure.
  • Eliminates configuration errors and automates ongoing changes in a closed loop, with templated deployment models and configuration-compliance alerts with automatic remediation.