NX-OS is a

network operating system A network operating system (NOS) is a specialized operating system for a network device such as a router, switch or firewall. Historically operating systems with networking capabilities were described as network operating systems, because they ...

for the Nexus-series

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type o ...

es and MDS-series

Fibre Channel Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to Server (computing), servers in storage area networks (SAN) in ...

storage area network A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block device, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access Computer data storage, data storage devices, such as disk ...

switches made by

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

. It evolved from the Cisco operating system SAN-OS, originally developed for its MDS switches. Cisco is responsible for its development and maintenance. The

command-line interface A command-line interface (CLI) is a means of interacting with software via command (computing), commands each formatted as a line of text. Command-line interfaces emerged in the mid-1960s, on computer terminals, as an interactive and more user ...

of NX-OS is similar to that of

Cisco IOS The Internetworking Operating System (IOS) is a family of proprietary network operating systems used on several router and network switch models manufactured by Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American ...

Development

Cisco is responsible for development and maintenance of NX-OS.

Core features

* System Manager (sysmgr) * Persistent Storage Service (PSS) * Message & Transaction Services (MTS)

Additional features

and FICON *

FCIP Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP or FC/IP, also known as Fibre Channel tunneling or storage tunneling) is a protocol created by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for storage technology. An FCIP entity encapsulates Fibre Channel frames using T ...

FCoE Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is a computer network technology that encapsulates Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks (or higher speeds) while preserving the Fibre Channel ...

(Nexus 5000/7000 linecards) *

iSCSI Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...

* IPsec * Scheduling * NPIV NX Port ID Virtualization * Inter–VSAN Routing * VSAN * Zoning (Hard zoning) * Callhome * Cisco Fabric Services (distributed configuration) * SSH and

Telnet Telnet (sometimes stylized TELNET) is a client-server application protocol that provides access to virtual terminals of remote systems on local area networks or the Internet. It is a protocol for bidirectional 8-bit communications. Its main ...

* Storage Media Encryption * Port Channels * Cisco Data Mobility Manager * Fibre Channel Write Acceleration

Switches running NX-OS

* Nexus B22 (HP, Dell, Fujitsu) * Nexus 9000 series * Nexus 7700 series * Nexus 7000 series * Nexus 6000 series * Nexus 5000 series * Nexus 4000 (for IBM BladeCenter) * Nexus 2000 series * Nexus 3000 * Nexus 1000V * MDS 9700 FC Directors * MDS 9500 FC Directors * MDS 9250i FC Switch * MDS 9222i FC Switch * MDS 9100 FC Switches

Differences between IOS and NX-OS

* NX-OS does not support the login command to switch users. * NX-OS does not distinguish between standard or extended access lists, all lists are named and "extended" in functionality. * NX-OS did not support scp server prior to 5.1(1) release. * In NX-OS, there is no "write" command to save the configuration like on IOS (one uses the "copy" command, instead). Instead, command aliases can be created to provide the "write" command. * When accessing NX-OS, users authenticate directly to their assigned privilege level. * SSH server is enabled while

server is disabled by default in NX-OS.

Releases

4.1, 4.2, 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, 6.0, 6.1, 6.2, 7.0, 9.2, 9.3, 10.1

References

External links

Cisco Content Hub

Cisco Feature Navigator

Proprietary operating systems Network operating systems Cisco software {{Routing software