Cisco Nexus Room for Improvement

Joe Benítez - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineer at GAD Municipal de Guayaquil

Talking about our environment and architecture, maybe it would be useful to have the whole configuration synchronized. Currently, the switches don't behave like the 4500 switches in terms of acting as one physical chassis. So the multi-chassis PortChannel feature is not applicable in this case.

Maybe you could improve the timing of the settings. Currently, only the VPC configuration is synchronized, but other configurations (routes, access lists, etc.) must be manually configured on each chassis.

View full review »
TS
Senior Advisor at CIGNA Corporation

For a very small subset, Cisco Nexus caused port flapping within the applications, which was weird. Call it an outage. It was one specific application, i.e. because of the way the application was routed through the switches which couldn't be handled that way. 

We had the good side because 90% of it works flawlessly. We didn't have to repeat IP everything. We didn't have to go through and take everything down. We just migrated it. But that one small subset went haywire.

View full review »
Michael GEgziabher - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Administrator at Bank of Abyssinia

The scalability can be improved. 

View full review »
Buyer's Guide
LAN Switching
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Juniper, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in LAN Switching. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
YS
IT Manager at DN Solutions

Data center access is stable and high speed but it is not compatible with Cisco's server hardware devices. 

The solution can be technically improved and can have features like automation, better visibility, better functionality, and cheap pricing.

View full review »
FJ
IT Specialist at E.ON

I'm not in a good position to comment on what might be lacking. I just use the Nexus switches, and I'm very happy to use the machines.

A lot of technologies and features are present on Cisco Nexus and I haven't had a chance to dive into all of them just yet.

We had some issues, strange issues with our firewall from Cisco, however, we resolved them with Cisco. They were very, very strange issues indeed. However, they seem to originate only on our site, and not from Nexus. From my point of view, I've never seen in 20 years, a single breakdown.

They should work to make the pricing more reasonable for the local market.

View full review »
RE
IT Manager Network at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees

I would like to see network function virtualization with no hardware.

I would like to see the integration of the products into something where it's seamless where an engineer never touches the switch again, never does CLI and you move to an application based network organization.

View full review »
Nitin Joshilkar - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Manager at NKGSB BANK

The pricing must be improved.

View full review »
MD
Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

The solution could be improved in general in all aspects. 

When it comes to technical assistance, you cannot speed up things. You can try to escalate, however, there's a process. You have not got them on speed dial. You need to wait.

It would be ideal if there was better integration with various other platforms. 

View full review »
MG
Senior Network Design Engineer at Kent State University

Our only complaint is about the licensing because it can always be a little more cost-effective.

View full review »
DN
Principal Engineer 2 at Charter Communications, Inc.

One improvement needed is support for Multi-CAD scale that we were concerned about. We're not hitting any limits at this point. There were concerns about the amount of server capacity that was going to be available. We like to see things that are already there as opposed to being told where they will be. 

View full review »
MY
Senior Network Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Cisco Nexus if focused primarily on the data center. While it has been in the market for nearly ten years, there are still many areas in need of improvement. There may be many bugs which remain unresolved. It is important for Cisco to be aware of the various issues it encounters and come up with new releases. 

The frequency with which this occurs can vary. It may take months, be done quarterly or, sometimes, after half a year has elapsed. There is still much to be done to increase their stability, something which can depend. 

The solution is relatively expensive when compared with Cisco Catalyst.

View full review »
KK
Network Engineer at Applied Materials

We really lag on the AC infrastructure where the configuration and the changes make a difference in terms of troubleshooting.

The product improves us when we see an expert and L1/L2 engineers for support. We have a dependency there. A simple configuration makes a big difference. It can create more chaos inside the network. We need to make sure when we make changes in one platform and it impacts other platforms, that the technical problems don't reach the end users.

There should be better certifications. More training should be provided before we get into this product.

View full review »
PR
Information Technology Network Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The solution could be more user-friendly. 

It should have a more lenient cost. It could be cheaper in general. 

The installation process lasted too long, taking 16 to 24 hours for full completion. It should be faster. 

View full review »
YA
Co-Founder and CEO at PT Eugenea Kreasi Utama

The solution is more expensive than other options on the market. HPE, for example, is a more affordable option. 

The renewal of support is quite expensive. 

View full review »
JA
Network Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees

I would like to have the feature where you can install something like operf on it so you can do troubleshooting without having to configure operf on servers.

We had issues with Cisco Nexus during upgrades. When we first got the system, we were having some issues. The whole system crashed. 

View full review »
KA
Network Engineer at Table Mountain

In the Nexus 3500, you can't do per-port Jumbo frames, so you have to enable it as a global configuration. This is a feature that should be added.

View full review »
DR
Senior Network Engineer at Halliburton Company

I would like to see more on-device programmability, as it seems to be lacking in this platform.

The EEM has limited capabilities compared to the Catalyst 9300 series, so this can be improved.

I would like to see better support for the newer front end tools, such as the DNS center.

View full review »
WF
Manager IP Core and Transmission Networks at GO PLC

One of the biggest challenges, which I see is that there's a constant evolution in the product. For example, our configuration is based on what is known as traditional data center implementation. Today there is the ACI deployment and to implement, to migrate from one technology to another, that's challenging both from a configuration perspective and also from a cost perspective. We have had a problem in an order of a batch of optics, which is practically failing. So that was about the average of optics, which caused us quite some problem.

View full review »
KM
Service Validation Engineers at a tech consulting company with 1,001-5,000 employees

We would like to see this solution support routing.

One of the problems we have is that there is no confirmation for when you try to test a system command. It just accepts it and does not give you a response.

View full review »
OM
Senior System Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

The licensing is very complicated. They should work to simplify it.

Every feature you want to use you have to pay for separately as an extra cost. The features should be bundled together. It sometimes causes us to have clashes with dealers.

We don't find that there's any difference between the Nexus and Catalyst solutions. It seems that just the marketing is somewhat different, even though they seem to be the same technology.

View full review »
DM
Senior Network Engineer at Northrop Grumman

I don't really know any improvements that we would need right now as a company. I would say it would be nice to support more phone models in general. For us that doesn't matter as we really stick with one type of phone. There hasn't been a phone refresh — I think — in maybe five years, but I think that's kind of how Cisco rolls. They do have a 10 year run on phones.

Better monitoring would be a big thing to have. The RTMT (Real-time Monitoring Tool) is good, but I also know they're moving to a web-based solution so certain updates to current products won't be on the way. Being able to drill down and have better adaptivity going forward would be nice. But I think that concentrating on the web-based solution is their plan and the way they're going. I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out.

View full review »
RM
Solutions Architect at ABS Technology

In the next release of the solution, I would like to see varying integration between VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding) instances so we can integrate BGB into different VRFs in a more organized way. We have some issues with tunnels and VRFs. 

View full review »
JV
Network Director at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

I would like to see some development into the SAE world where you can virtualize. That would be the only thing I would like to see because I need to start virtualizing my infrastructure gear at some of the other data centers that I have.

View full review »
PP
Network Engineer at a government with 11-50 employees

The only real feature that we are hoping would evolve at some point is multi-contexts to get into multi-tenancy type environments. We are very interested in that with the 7000s. But we didn't like all the other robustness that 7000s had that we had to pay extra for. 9000s fit our needs a little bit better, but multi-contexts would be a really good feature for organizations like us, so we can separate different tenants logically and in a more secure fashion.

View full review »
TF
Leader of Network Engineering at MVP Health Care

We have uncovered things about some of the features where there is room for improvement.  

  • There are limitations on some of the lower level 9K solutions where you can't do the same things that you would normally be able to do, like for instance the number of static maps that you can configure on it.
  • There are limitations between different product IDs that I do not really understand, and I don't think that there is a really good reason for.
View full review »
Loris Signoracci - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Engineer at Itworks srl

The flexibility and configuration could be better. It needs to be improved.

It is not as reliable as Catalyst.

View full review »
Itsikc BenTolila - PeerSpot reviewer
Founder & CEO at Malam-Team

They could improve on having different technologies between product models. The management dashboard could be better if it could handle the Catalyst and the Nexus at the same time. If Cisco could find management connectivity between the DMA center and the ACI connectivity this would be helpful.

View full review »
ZS
Sr. Data Center Network Engineer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

I would like to see more automation and for it to be easier to use. 

View full review »
RS
Network Engineer at American Honda Motor

The solution has room for improvement in terms of the learning curve.

View full review »
AS
Network Coordinator at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees

The VLAN is a little more hand driven now. I don't know exactly why the split screen does that.

If we could get some more automation integrated into it, it would make it easier.

View full review »
TP
Senior Network Engineer at Advanced Drainage Systems

This solution is only scalable to a degree.

This is a very expensive product.

Areas in which the solution have room for improvement are the interface, management, and reporting. You still have to go deep into the CLI to find issues.

View full review »
PH
Network Architect at a manufacturing company with 5,001-10,000 employees

I would like to see Duo directly integrated with the Nexus hardware, instead of it being through the proxies, like how Duo works today. The way it works now really irritates me.

There is a lot of depth in the Nexus class, and it would help to make this more accessible to the users. We, for instance, are using them no differently than we would a Catalyst switch with VPCs. With that in mind, some of the more in-depth features would be nice to have, so having easier access to them would be beneficial.

View full review »
JitendraPrasad - PeerSpot reviewer
ICT Infrastructure Solutions Engineer at Datec (Fiji) Limited

There is limited guidance in terms of the use and configuration of Cisco Nexus for specific use cases. The documentation is not comprehensive, and you have to do a lot of online research.

I would like to have web interface configuration of the GUI in the next release. It would be good to be able to instruct via the GUI and then do the background commands.

I would also like, in terms of tracking for HSRP features, active-passive links when using multiple active-passive links. It would be great to have data automation.

View full review »
AL
Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees

Nexus switches should be able to support network function virtualization (NFV).

View full review »
TG
CEO at a construction company with 11-50 employees

The price could be better. 

View full review »
JC
Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

I am looking for a GUI that goes alongside them and more SD-WAN built to their core switches.

I'm looking at changing our firewall estate, and at the same time, looking at integrating our firewalls with whatever our core switch solution is going to be. I can't necessarily do that with the costings of a Cisco organization, as they're too expensive.

View full review »
RM
Sr Network Engineer at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

In future releases, it would be good to have more management on those devices.

Cisco needs to provide more training.

View full review »
MP
Network Engineer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

The only major improvement required would be stability. With some of the products we had before, we had a little more downtime than we would like.

We had to spend more time either dealing with parts that needed to be replaced, or issues that we had in configurations that we needed to upgrade. The Cisco Nexus is a lot more stable and doesn't have all of the bugs when it has to do with upgrades.

Some of the fiber optic capacity increases will be good because we're already looking at 40 GB and 100 GB at a reasonable price. 

Fiber capacity is going to be something we're starting to look on our roadmap, how do we increase what we have available.

We use Cisco Nexus and haven't had any problems. We've been happy with it.

View full review »
Hesham Rashed - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director at Technology Pro Egypt

The cost of the support can be improved. We had critical operations, and we needed 24/7 support for 365 days, which was quite expensive. We had to go for a very costly support contract, which was really a concern. The availability of spare parts, especially in a remote location such as Egypt, can also be improved.

View full review »
DS
IT Specialist at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees

They should make sure that the back address auto is baselined. I think it might even be baselined, so it might be that one of our team members had messed that up, but it just wasn't a very straightforward command. You should have multi-context, multi-port channel enabled on the underlay of the Firepower. The way the Firepower firewalls work is they have a management plane, and then you make the virtual ASAs on the Firepower, where you're assigning multiple interfaces or core channels on there. have fewer devices and fewer physical interfaces, yet retain a more extensive logical setup.

View full review »
MB
Architect at CenturyLink

There are still bugs in the system that need to be fixed.

Technical support could be better.

View full review »
HK
CTO at Mechkar

The implementation process could be easier, which is something that should be improved.

View full review »
DB
Consultant at a mining and metals company with 201-500 employees

In terms of the context of this deployment, Cisco Nexus did everything it needed to do. 

I'd like to see this be wrapped into ACI. I'll be more comfortable when it's had more deployments. There's more knowledge out there on how to configure it.

The Cisco Nexus is a big change. I'm not currently looking for new features. I am looking to other customers with good experiences deploying in ACI mode.

View full review »
MM
Network Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

Cisco Nexus is very new. We're still on the learning curve for the 9000.

View full review »
JM
Network Manager at a transportation company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The operating system needs to be improved. There should be stability in the operating system, and it should not have as many vulnerabilities.

It is very expensive. Its price could be better.

View full review »
CB
Network Administrator at St Ambrose University

They should make it easier to update the code on it. Upgrading should also be easier. 

View full review »
JG
Sr Manager of Network and Telephony at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

I would love to see Active/Active FEX connectivity, which is enhanced vPC, where we could also do a vPC from a server in that type of configuration. It's still a limitation that's been carried over from the 7K that I'm surprised is still absent from the 9K. Including this would give us the highest level of redundancy without risking having orphaned ports, which we do have at times.

View full review »
AS
InfoTech Specialist at California Department of Corrections

The technical support for this solution needs to be improved.

View full review »
HM
CIO at Masriacard

Enhancing the software-defined level of this solution would empower it.

View full review »
AT
Sr. Backbone Architect at NTT Global Networks Incorporated

Cisco Nexus could also have better documentation.

Moreover, it would be nice if the solution offered multiple types of port support. It does not have, for example, a single switch for both internet and fiber ports. 

View full review »
RY
Practice Lead - Data Center Networking at a construction company with 5,001-10,000 employees

There is an ongoing problem with the limitation of the TCAM table, which is that it doesn't have enough memory to allow you to be really granular with your policy. Without enough memory, it requires manual manipulation if you exceed or get near to the TCAM limits. They have improved it, but in the early days, it took down some companies.

View full review »
TK
Network Engineer at Archer Daniels Midland

They need to offer fibre switches in the 9K series.

I would like to have the ability to identify ports by flashing port lights, so I can tell the user "We need to look at port four", and then I can flash the light remotely using the command line.

View full review »
TB
Software Developer at Nebula

There is room for improvement in the pricing. The solution is expensive. Compared to other vendors, it's costly for similar products.

View full review »
CL
Sr Network Engineer at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would like to see better collaboration with other, low-end devices.

View full review »
JR
Infrastructure Engineer at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

We have encountered some software bugs.

View full review »
WL
Network Adminstrator at a government with 501-1,000 employees

My only complaint is that not all of the ports on it are enabled from the start. We pay for twenty-six ports, and we would have to license the other ports if we want to use them. This can get expensive as you expand more.

View full review »
NC
Network Engineer at solutions4networks

In the next release of this solution, Cisco should keep trending on ease-of-use, with more human or regular language and commands.

Maybe they could add some machine learning and AI integration. Ease-of-use and making things more human-readable is most important.

View full review »
FR
Digital Transformation at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

The software is not as mature as it could be and needs some integration improvements with other orchestrators.

View full review »
JW
Network Engineer Principal

I would like to see improved ISSU.

View full review »
AD
Network Engineer at a university with 10,001+ employees

I would like to see the usability improved by simplifying the user interface. For example, it would be nice to have a simple way to find endpoints and get information about them. It would be great if they could make the interface a little more user-friendly, but not trade power off for simplicity.

View full review »
ManagerOedd5 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Network Engineering at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees

The code quality for this solution has gotten worse and needs improvement.

View full review »
DA
Pre-Sales Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The 9K was developed to support ACI, the software-defined data center technology. For this reason, there is no feature parity between the 9K and the 5K or 7K, which means that it is harder to position the 9K to future proof them. If a customer wants to leverage their investment for ACI in the future then it is difficult. I know that Cisco has added some Fibre Channel over Ethernet capabilities to the 9K line, but there are some other features that it does not have capabilities for. For example, virtual device context is not supported. It would be really nice to see some capabilities like that added to the 9K line so that we can position them to future-proof our customers.

I understand why it is that they don't have some of the features from the older Nexus models, but we get into some scenarios where the customers need those features, and they have to go with a 7K or a 5K. Ideally, I would prefer to position a 9K if I could, to future-proof them and lead them along that path to ACI, eventually.

View full review »
FD
CTIO at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees

There is not much that needs to be improved at this stage. If it were possible to gain even more throughput and more port diversity, that can always be a benefit.

View full review »
AT
Sr. Principal Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Areas for improvement would be the delivery timeline for the actual model, the length of which means we have to sacrifice a range of models because we can't wait six months for delivery.

View full review »
SB
Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Upgrade and promote catalyst switches to the Nexus, it's a lot faster.

View full review »
AS
Unified Network Architect at Barry-Wehmiller

In the next release of this solution, I would like to see a focus on backplane deployment, so you can stack more.

View full review »
GG
Network Engineer at Google

We would like to see OpenConfig covering most of the industry standards. The YANG models, for example, and also support for OpenFlow.

The areas that need improvement are MACsec, OpenConfig, and OpenFlow.

View full review »
NR
Network Technician at a individual & family service with 10,001+ employees

I really wish that Nexus and iOS commands were more similar than they are different. Standardization across iOS and Nexus operating systems would be an improvement.

View full review »
WG
Network Analyst at Marion County

This solution costs a lot.

View full review »
RC
Internetwork Solution Engineer at OPLK

I would like to see a central management solution in order to have all of the equipment in one place.

Also, more documentation and more design examples would help us to reach other clients.

View full review »
AR
Network Engineer at SRPMIC

The additional features I would like to see is X-LAN and ACI. More ACI or SDN features.

View full review »
HC
Network Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Currently, the platform is heavy. I would like to see a lighter platform.

View full review »
YM
Chief Technology Officer at Interlink Engineering Pvt Ltd

I feel that this solution should be more flexible and scalable.

View full review »
BP
Director at Wipro Technologies

Any problems we have with the product stems from the difficulty of connecting with other non-Cisco products. There are other products on the market which we would like to have integrated. That's when we have a real solution.

View full review »
JA
Unified Communications Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

There is always room for improvement.

View full review »
KH
IT Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

There is some room for improvement when it comes to the frequency on the network.

View full review »
HK
Product Manager - Networking & Security at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

In terms of improvement, the stacking between the two switches in the higher availability model should be similar to Catalyst. It's better to have one interface for configuration.

I hope to see more features for high-availability configuration such as a VSS configuration on the Catalyst series. To have one management console for both chassis. I also hope to see the dependency on the management interface for high-availability lowered.

What needs improvement is the price on the DNA subscription. It's obligatory for all the switches and you should have the option to remove it or keep it as optional. Cisco has the option to remove it now. We have agreed that in the future, they will offer a permanent license for it.

View full review »
PW
CTO at a tech services company

There are too many different model numbers and too much complexity. The Nexus 9K, for example, came from a family of twenty offerings.

View full review »
FM
IT Director at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

The price is a con.

View full review »
RC
Tech Architect at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

I would like to see more granularity. 

View full review »
AJ
Network Admin at a hospitality company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Cisco Nexus is a switch. It's fairly straightforward in what it does and what it can offer. Other than the differences between the command line or vs. Catalyst, it's just getting used to it.

I don't have any negative issues. Cisco Nexus is expensive.

View full review »
JS
Network Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees

Some of the DHCP features need improvement.

View full review »
CL
Network Analyst at Govt of Canada

The additional features I would like to see included in the next release is the ability to integrate routing and switching features. 

View full review »
TM
Network Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

I get more of the frustration out of Juniper equipment than I do from Cisco products. Cisco Nexus is more versatile for us in comparison to Juniper. The routing is easier with Cisco.

View full review »
TN
Network Services Manager at Allen Systems Group

Being this is the first usage, we don't have any expectations yet. 

View full review »
it_user208146 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer, Security Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Promulgation of functionality needs working on.

View full review »
TS
Network Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Overall, I wish it was a more intuitive OS.

View full review »
DL
Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

The product could be improved with a friendlier GUI.

View full review »
RW
Network Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Cisco Nexus still needs more stability. Not that they're unstable. FlexPod in particular. My team doesn't work with that but it's owned by the server infrastructure team. It's in the UTS. They're pretty stable but every once in a while, it's not.

View full review »
RS
Network Analyst at a marketing services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees

The only issue that I have with this product is finding help on different commands when I'm trying to make a change. Or, if I'm troubleshooting an issue, finding what commands I need to do certain things. I know what I need to do, but I'm not sure of the exact command.

View full review »
HS
Network Security Administration at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees

I would like to see better monitoring actions supported in the next release of this solution. An overview of what is going on with the system would be helpful.

View full review »
AA
Principle Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Nothing is perfect.

View full review »
it_user1083 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Operations at a tech company with 51-200 employees

There are absolutely no issues to worry about Nexus 7 if you decide to pick it. Its portrait shaped screen only becomes landscape when you watch movies or operate any other application that requires the landscape screen. In comparison to iPad, Nexus 7 has a fewer number of apps for entertainment. You may feel the absence of a heavyweight, rear camera. Its front camera does all the work as of now.

View full review »
Buyer's Guide
LAN Switching
March 2024
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Juniper, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in LAN Switching. Updated: March 2024.
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.