Can this be used standalone? "Cisco Nexus 2000 Fabric Extender"

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Dreece

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Jan 22, 2019
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I see on their datasheet that Cisco keeps referencing the parent 5000/6000/7000/9000 series switches.

I'm just wondering if I can grab one of these extenders as a straightforward L2 switch and just use it for ethernet frames as standalone, am I barking up the wrong tree?

@Evan , any input?
 

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
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I'm not a network engineer, but afaik - no - these are modules which connect to the parent nexus switch. They aren't even managed separately but like stacked switches.
 
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Dreece

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Jan 22, 2019
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I managed to get an answer from google to that effect too. A pity... I thought I found a goldmine for a second there :D
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Nope, the 2000 series FEX is useless without an actual switch, units like 5548 and similar should not be that rare on the used market but can’t say I have looked.

The cheapest nexus is a 3000 series that I can’t remember what model but was a lot floating around on eBay a while back. (Use that switch as stand alone though)
 

Dreece

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Jan 22, 2019
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I have a fair few switches now. The recent acquisitions was because of POE needs. Don't really need anymore, but the bug is there :D

I think the next big buying streak is going to be a juicy 100Gb port switch with a few 100gb port cards - and that's probably a few years off before it is justifiable as a hobby purchase. But by then I'll probably be working off a cloud and have just a tablet/laptop...

Edited: went off-topic, need to master forum etiquette
 
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Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Let’s hope the power consumption comes down, Cisco 48 port 10G copper switches seem to be still 200w +
Bit hungry for home lab to me unless it was only powered on when needed.

Having said that similar consumption for the 36 port 100G models, well not all that much more.
 

Dreece

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Jan 22, 2019
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Let’s hope the power consumption comes down, Cisco 48 port 10G copper switches seem to be still 200w +
Bit hungry for home lab to me unless it was only powered on when needed.

Having said that similar consumption for the 36 port 100G models, well not all that much more.
The high power consumption of Cisco Enterprise gear really does amaze me... and to think there are millions of these switches out there across the globe burning all that energy 'idling' LOL

I mean even their ASA gear puts me off, the 5550 at least looks good on paper with its 1gbps firewall throughput... but 150watts just for a firewall/router?

madness?

noooo

this is Spartaaaa... cisco. :D
 

Dreece

Active Member
Jan 22, 2019
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I like Fortinets ASIC approach to firewalls, that 60D of theirs is pretty amazing if you consider the fact it uses as much power as a regular household led bulb and its gigabit+ throughput.

Actually I was thinking of bringing down one of my internet firewall vms and just using that instead, the saved xeon cpu cycles might bring me huge energy savings... I have all those energy efficiency flags enabled in the bios etc, but the firewall vm is allocated 4 cores from one of the nodes and pretty sure that cpu is constantly ramping up and down on power.
 
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