Cisco WS-C3550-12G Switch Guide - Page 269

Cisco Nexus 1000V Series Switches The Cisco Nexus 1000V is a switching platform designed to provide: • Advanced virtual machine networking, such as adding server virtualization intelligence into the network • Cisco vPath architecture that supports a variety of virtualized network services including Virtual Security Gateway • Cloud deployment optimization, such as extending the range of vMotion between two physical data centers The Nexus 1000V has two major components, the Virtual Ethernet Module (VEM) and the Virtual Supervisor Module (VSM). The VEM is the Cisco software switch inside the VMware ESX or ESXi hypervisor and replaces the VMware Virtual Switch functionality. Its advanced switching features include Quality of Service, Link Aggregation, Access Control List, NetFlow, ERSPAN, and many others. Together, these features allow you to optimize the virtual machine network with more robust connectivity. The VEMs are managed by the VSM, which is an instance of NX-OS. In fact, the VSM manages a collection of VEMs as a single network device. With Nexus 1000V, network administrator is able to define network policies on the VSM. These policies include network configuration information such as VLANs, Access Control List, Quality of Service and others. These policies appear in the VMware vCenter Server as port groups that can be applied to individual VMs. Therefore, with Nexus 1000V, both the network administrators and server virtualization administrators are able to independently configure the virtual machine network using familiar tools, such as NX-OS and VMware vCenter Server. Once these policies are attached to the VM, they follow the VM throughout its lifecycle, including vMotion. In fact, during vMotion, VMs can continue traffic monitoring activities, such as ERSPAN and Netflow, because Nexus 1000V moves the entire network state of the VM. 267