Main Components of Nexus Switch

Chassis

--> This is the slots where we place I/O Modules and Supervisor Engine Modules are placed on Nexus Switch.

--> The number of slots are required in Nexus switch based on port density such as how many servers you want to connect.

Supervisor Engine

--> Supervisor Engine is responsible for control plane and data plane functions on the Nexus switch.

--> Supervisor Engine contains many ports such as,

i) USB and Management Ports

ii) USB Flash Memory

iii) RAM

iv) Intel Xeon CPU

Fabric Modules

--> Fabric Modules are installed in the backplane of Nexus Switch, which provides bandwidth to each slot of the Nexus Switch.

--> Whereas In Cisco Catalyst switches, Supervisor Engine is responsible for providing necessary bandwidth to each slot.

--> In basic terms, a fabric module connects the line cards and the supervisors together in a Nexus.

--> We can add multiple fabric modules and they work together to increase the total throughput of the chassis.

--> Fabric Modules can be either version 1 or Version 2.

--> Some Nexus switches do not require fabric modules in order to provide bandwidth to each slot.

I/O Modules

--> I/O Modules provides required port density to connect Servers and other devices into Nexus Switch.

--> I/O Modules is also called as Line Cards.

--> I/O Modules can be either 1G or 10G or 40G or 100G.

--> I/O Modules in Nexus Switches are mainly divided into F Series or M Series.

--> F Series Modules only provides Layer 2 features whereas M Series modules support both Layer 2 as well as Layer 3 Modules.

--> Each I/O Module contains fabric interface which connects to Fabric Modules.