NEXUS 7000 ADVANCED LAN/ENTERPRICE LIC. VDC CTS ONLY EN

NX-OS for the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series offers a suite of licenses, each of which enables a unique set of features as shown later in this document in Table 6. All the license features except FCoE are chassis based, meaning that each license enables the features within that license for all I/O modules and single or redundant supervisors that reside in the chassis. The only exception to this model is FCoE, which requires a license for each I/O module.

The Base license offers a comprehensive feature set at no additional cost, and incremental capabilities can be added with additional licenses. The LAN Enterprise license (N7K-LAN1K9) enables a complete list of Layer 3 protocols, and the VDC licenses (N7K-ADV1K9 and N7K-VDC1K9) enable VDCs for Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Supervisor 1, Supervisor 2, and Supervisor 2E Modules. Note that all Cisco Nexus 7000 Series licenses enable independent features; thus, there is no hierarchy in which one license includes the features of another license. For example, Layer 3 protocols and VDCs require both the LAN Enterprise license and the VDC license.

The Transport Services license (N7K-TRS1K9) enables an IP-based data center interconnect (DCI) solution by including the OTV and LISP technologies. The Enhanced Layer 2 license (N7K-EL21K9) enables FabricPath, the latest Cisco technology to massively scale Layer 2 data centers. The Scalable Services license, applied on a per-chassis basis, enables Cisco Nexus 7000 XL-Series capabilities on all XL-capable line cards in the chassis. MPLS services such as Layer 3 VPN, MPLS-TE, multicast virtual private network (MVPN), and 6PE and 6VPE are enabled with the MPLS license (N7K-MPLS1K9).

Storage features are enabled with the FCoE licenses and the SAN license. FCoE is licensed on a per-module basis and enables FCoE functions on the Cisco Nexus 7000 F1-Series and F2-Series I/O modules. FCoE is the only license that is not chassis based. The next sections provide more information about each license.

Virtual device contexts (VDCs): NX-OS offers the capability to segment OS and hardware resources into virtual contexts that emulate virtual devices. Each VDC has its own software processes, dedicated hardware resources (physical interfaces, VLANs, routing table size, Virtual Routing and Forwarding [VRF] instances, etc.), and independent management environment. VDCs are instrumental in the consolidation of separate networks onto a common infrastructure, maintaining the administrative boundary separation and fault-isolation characteristics of physically separate networks while providing many of the operating cost benefits of a single infrastructure. Each VDC can be restarted without affecting the control, data, or management plane of other VDCs in the system.