Cisco has announced a family of data center-class switching platforms, the Cisco Nexus Series.

The Nexus 7000 is a platform that delivers up to 15 terabits per second of switching capacity in a single chassis, supporting up to 512 10-gigabits-per-second (Gbps) Ethernet and future delivery of 40- and 100-Gbps Ethernet. Its unified fabric architecture combines Ethernet and storage capabilities into a single platform, designed to provide all servers with access to all network and storage resources. Key components of the unified fabric architecture include unified I/O interfaces and Fibre Channel over Ethernet support to be delivered in the future.

Microsoft is currently performing rigorous testing of the Nexus 7000 Series for security, manageability and performance in a lab environment. "We appreciate the modular processes of the Cisco Nexus operating system designed to resolve problems in real time without impact to production traffic, as well as data center-class high-availability features and unified fabric support," said Debra Chrapaty, corporate vice president, Global Foundation Services, Microsoft.

At the heart of the Nexus 7000 Series is the NX-OS software. NX-OS combines Cisco's SAN-OS, Layer 2 switching, Layer 3 routing protocols, and virtualisation capabilities.