Cisco IOS, Cisco IOS-XE and Cisco NX-OS Defined

iOS iOS XE nx-os what is all this did my spellchecker just go crazy or is this some new texting language well let's find out on this edition of nr.1 TV [Music] [Music] welcome to nr-1 TV today we're going to talk about some of the different networking operating systems that run cisco devices most of you are familiar with Cisco's iOS or internetwork operating system this is the world's most prevalent operating system running on millions of devices around the world Cisco IOS has been around since the 1980s and has evolved drastically over the years in fact it is still used today on most cisco routers and layer 3 switches but what about other OS types what makes them different in what types of devices do they run on to answer this question let's welcome Dan Stanton dan has been a Cisco Certified System instructor CCSI for you techies since 1995 in addition to being one of the senior instructors at enter one he develops authorized training courses and materials for cisco dan please enlighten us on the differences between iOS iOS XE and nx-os thanks Bob you know as you said Cisco IOS has been around for a very long time it's what we call a monolithic operating system this means that it includes its own multitasking kernel along with the protocols necessary to perform the basic functions of a router this is the path discovery of the network and packet forwarding over the years Cisco IOS has evolved from its basic routing functionality to support layer 3 switching and numerous internet working technologies as they evolved including telecommunications traffic iOS devices are typically managed one at a time from the command-line interface and include a user exec mode privilege mode global configuration mode some other modes however multiple devices can also be managed using a network management software application for example cisco prime infrastructure can be used to manage visualize and monitor the entire iOS network from a single user graphical interface moving on Cisco IOS XE is an evolution of Cisco IOS it's what's called a modular operating system with an iOS daemon actually running within illinois's kernel as a result it has the exact same look and feel as Cisco IOS because of its open and flexible design iOS XE supports control plane and data plane separation multiple CPU cores as well as programmability features iOS XE was designed to support Cisco's next generation device platforms most notably the catalyst 9000 series switches not to be confused with the Nexus 9000 S which we'll discuss in a few minutes the catalyst 9000 series switches are purpose-built platform supporting Cisco's digital network architecture or DNA instead of managing these switches one at a time Cisco DNA center is an application that provides a centralized management dashboard to design provision and apply policies across the entire network Cisco DNA Center is also used to implement software-defined access or SD access this creates an overlay network on top of the underlay fabric of routers and switches it actually creates an abstraction layer which treats the fabric as a virtual switch on which virtual networks are created this brings us to Cisco's nexus or annex OS which provides the foundation to create a cisco unified fabric one that combines both LAN network traffic and storage area network or sand traffic by converging the network on a single physical infrastructure cabling in the data center is literally cut in half this sounds great but why do we need a special OS for the unified fabric as you know the land uses classical Ethernet which is best effort delivery protocol it discards packet when the network is congested this is unacceptable in a data center storage area network which is why fibre channel is used fibre channel in the sand provides a lossless service using a buffer to buffer system this mechanism it only allows frames to be transmitted when the receiver has buffer space available the snow drop packets nx-os actually evolved from the cisco san OS which was developed for the data center MDS Fibre Channel switches as a result nx-os supports something called Fibre Channel over Ethernet or FCoE which encapsulates a fiber channel frame inside of an Ethernet frame for transport across the nexus series switches until it reaches a SAN fabric for this to work nx-os supports jumbo frames and provides a lossless QoS service for both native Fiber Channel and FCoE traffic fortunately nx-os CLI commands are very similar to Cisco IOS commands making it easy to learn the nexus 9000 series is an example of switches that run the NX OS software but there are also the foundation for something called application centric infrastructure or ACI this is another cisco software-defined networking solution when a nexus 9000 is placed in the ACI mode it uses a new operating system that works in conjunction with a centralized application policy infrastructure controller or a pic the apec provides a single point of automation and management for the cisco ACI fabric well that pretty much covers the major Cisco OS types there are some others but hey that's a discussion for another day back to you Bob thanks Dan so there you have it iOS iOS XE and nx-os regardless of what OS you're using in your organization anyone has the training you need to help you get the greatest return on your Cisco investment thanks for watching nr1 TV make sure you hit the subscribe button below so you can be the first to see future episodes for more information on how we can help contact your enter one sales rep or send an email to sales at enter one com [Music]

Channel: NterOne TV

Views: 9,518

Keywords: Cisco, IOS, NX-OS, IOS-XE, NterOne, Cisco Operating Systems, Cisco Training, Cisco NX-OS, Cisco IOS

Id: ILVE8dd2yQo

Length: 7min 15sec (435 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 05 2019