As Cisco Launched its Next Gen Catalyst 6000 Series as Catalyst 6800 based on One of it's most successful Enterprise switch product Cat 6500's DNA at recent Cisco Live Event At Orlando, There was an advantage that competing Nexus Series had even as solution to Enterprise market was Nexus 2000 AKA FEX, which was offering lots of benefits.
While the roadmap/investment protection of Nexus Family is yet to be clarified by Cisco as they keep coming with newer versions and flavors, the Cat 6500 always seen as very mature platform for Enterprise solutions.
Even to compete further with Nexus family, Cisco Catalyst team came up with a latest solution recently as INSTANT ACCESS (IA).
The benefits Cisco IA offers are some what similar to Nexus 2000/FEX. Though there are few hard requirements like :
> SUP 2T
> VSS CODE
> Switches To be configured in VSS Mode even if it's a standalone chassis
> 6904 10/40Gig line cards to be operated in 10Gig mode only
Further Readings:
HTH...
Deepak Arora
Evil CCIE
