MDS 9500
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The Cisco® MDS 9500 Series of Multilayer Directors Addressing the stringent requirements of virtualized data center storage environments with high availability, scalability, intelligence, ease of management, and support for seamless deployment of converged Fibre Channel (FC) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Fabrics. Figure 1. Cisco MDS 9500 Multilayer Directors Cisco MDS 9500 Series Highlights ● Multiprotocol Architecture: The Cisco MDS 9500 Series of Multilayer Directors transparently integrate Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), IBM Fiber Connectivity (FICON), Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI), and Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) in one system. 1/2/4/8-Gbps and 10-Gbps Fibre Channel: The Cisco MDS 9513 Director natively integrates both 1/2/4/8-Gbps and 10-Gbps ports on the new 8-Gbps Advanced Fibre Channel switching modules. With 50% higher bandwidth than 8-Gbps Fibre Channel, 10-Gbps mode offers high performance connectivity suitable for Inter Switch Links (ISLs) and inter-data center connection over an optical infrastructure. 10-Gbps Multihop FCoE: The Cisco MDS 9500 Series of Multilayer Directors support multihop FCoE, extending convergence of SAN and LAN traffic from server access to network core while enabling connectivity to existing Fibre Channel SANs. The Cisco MDS 9500 Series of Directors supports extension of Fibre Channel SAN to devices that are connected using FCoE protocol over Ethernet, thereby extending the rich capabilities of intelligent services to unified fabric deployments. 1/2/4/8-Gbps and 10-Gbps FICON: The Cisco MDS 9500 Multilayer Directors support advanced FICON services including cascaded FICON fabrics, VSAN-enabled intermix of mainframe and open systems environments, and N_Port ID virtualization (NPIV) for mainframe Linux partitions. Cisco Control Unit Port (CUP) support enables in-band management of Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches from the mainframe management console. © 2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.

Industry-leading scalability: The Cisco MDS 9500 Directors combine non-disruptive software upgrades, stateful process restart and failover, and full redundancy of all major components for best-in-class availability. With 8.4 terabits per second (Tbps) of system bandwidth and up to 528 1/2/4/8-Gbps autosensing Fibre Channel ports in a single chassis or up to 1584 Fibre Channel ports in a single rack, the Cisco MDS Directors lead the industry in scalability and are designed to meet the requirements of the largest data center storage environments. Furthermore, Cisco MDS Directors support all...

Comprehensive security: In addition to support for services such as VSANs, hardware-enforced zoning, ACLs, per-VSAN role-based access control (RBAC), Cisco SME for tapes and disks, and Cisco TrustSec Fibre Channel link encryption, the Cisco MDS 9000 Family supports a comprehensive security framework consisting of RADIUS and TACACS+, Fibre Channel Security Protocol (FC-SP), Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol, and Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3) implementing Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). Cisco TrustSec Fibre Channel link encryption...

Cisco MDS 9500 Series System Summary Table 1 compares hardware features within the Cisco MDS 9500 Series. Table 1. Cisco MDS 9500 Series Hardware Feature Comparison Available Slots Redundant Supervisor Maximum 10-Gbps FCoE Ports per Chassis Maximum 1/2/4/8-Gbps Fibre Channel Ports per Chassis Maximum 10-Gbps Fibre Channel Ports per Chassis Maximum FCIP Ports per Chassis Rack Units Fibre Channel Ports per Rack 8-Gbps Advanced Fibre Channel Switching Modules 8-Gbps Advanced Fibre Channel Switching Modules, deliver high performance and innovative features to enable convergence, scalability,...

10-Gbps 8-Port Fibre Channel Over Ethernet (FCoE) Module Cisco MDS 9500 Series of Multilayer Directors support 10-Gbps 8-port Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) switching module with full line-rate FCoE connectivity to extend the benefits of FCoE beyond the access layer into the core of the data center network. Cisco MDS 9000 10-Gbps FCoE module (Figure 3) provides the industry’s first multihop-capable FCoE module. FCoE allows an evolutionary approach to I/O consolidation by preserving all Fibre Channel constructs, maintaining the latency, security, and traffic management attributes of...

Cisco MDS 9000 Family 8-Gbps Fibre Channel Switching Modules 16-Port Storage Services Node ® The Cisco MDS 9000 16-Port Storage Services Node (Figure 5) provides a high-performance, flexible, unified platform for deploying enterprise-class disaster recovery, business continuance, and intelligent fabric applications. The 16-Port Storage Services Node offers Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) for remote SAN Extension, Cisco IO Accelerator (IOA) to optimize the utilization of Metropolitan and Wide Area Network (MAN/WAN) resources for backup and replication using hardware-based compression, FC write...

Cisco MDS 9000 18/4-Port Multiservice Module 10-Gbps Fibre Channel Switching Module Cisco MDS 9000 Series supports 10-Gbps Fibre Channel switching with the Cisco MDS 9000 4-Port 10-Gbps Fibre Channel switching module. This module supports hot-swappable X2 optical SC interfaces. Modules can be configured with either short-wavelength or long-wavelength X2 transceivers for connectivity up to 300 meters and 10 kilometers, respectively. Figure 5 shows the Cisco MDS 9000 Family 4-Port 10-Gbps Fibre Channel switching module. Figure 7. Cisco MDS 9000 Family 4-Port 10-Gbps Fibre Channel Switching...

Cisco MDS 9500 Series Supervisor-2A Module Cisco MDS 9500 Series Advanced Features Convergence with Multihop FCoE FCoE allows an evolutionary approach to network and I/O convergence by preserving all Fibre Channel constructs, maintaining the latency, security, and traffic management attributes of Fibre Channel and preserving investments in Fibre Channel tools, training, and SANs. With multihop FCoE connectivity, Cisco MDS 9500 Series of Multilayer Directors extends advanced fabric services to unified fabric deployments attached to Cisco Nexus Family data center switches. Sharing the same...