Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Nexus Line Cards Naming Convention

This post is a brief explaination about knowing the specification of Nexus series switches M and F series line modules ( or I/O modules) from its name
.
I am taking example of F-Series I/O module (N7K-F248XP-25) and similarly M series can also b read.
Example:
N7K-F2 48 X  P - 2  5 

Below is the explanation of each field and explained with other option you may see in different line cards:
N7k
is self explanatory, it indicates the type of chassis,
F2 
it is the series, family or generation of F series line cards. This one is 2nd generation, means F2 family. Similarly M1, M2, F3 and so on.
48
No. of ports on the card.

X   Or  F or C  or
G means ports are 1 Gig ports
X means 10 Gig ports
F means 40 Gig ports (Ex: N7K-F312FQ-25).
C indicates 100 G (Ex: N77-F312CK-26)

P  or S or  T or Q or Kor 2
it is interface type,
S means SFP
P means SFP+ .
T means RJ45(Ex: N7K-F248XT-25E)
Q means QSFP+(Ex: N7K-F312FQ-25) ,
K means Cisco CPAK( Ex: N77-F312CK-26)
2  means X2 (ex. N7K-M108X2-12L)

25 
Means FAB2 module required and 5 FAB2 module needs to be installed to run at full capacity.