VMware Networking Blog

We’ve seen a lot of excitement around our vNetwork Distributed Switch and also the Cisco Nexus 1000V virtual switch. A little confusion, however, has arisen around physical switch dependencies for the Nexus 1000V. I understand the confusion as the Nexus 1000V (which is software based and available now) and VN-link (hardware based and not yet available) with Nexus 5000 are often presented together.

So, for the record … the Cisco Nexus 1000V will operate with any physical switch (that we know of)—Cisco Catalyst, Nexus, Foundry, HP, Force 10, etc, etc. Of course, some of the special features may only be available when coupled with a Catalyst or Nexus.

For more information:

• A paper on VMware vDS and Cisco Nexus 1000V Features is available under “Resources” at vmware.com/go/networking
• Nexus 1000V at cisco.com/go/nexus1000v