Cisco MDS 9000 OS

Inter-VSAN Routing

Data traffic can be transported between specific initiators and targets on different VSANs using Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR) without merging VSANs into a single logical fabric. Fibre Channel control traffic does not flow between VSANs, nor can initiators access any resources aside from the ones designated with IVR. Valuable resources such as tape libraries can be easily shared without compromise. IVR also can be used in conjunction with FCIP to create more efficient business-continuity and disaster-recovery solutions.

Intelligent Fabric Applications

The Cisco MDS 9000 SAN-OS Software forms a solid basis for delivering network-based storage applications and services such as virtualization, snapshots, continuous data protection, network-accelerated serverless backup, data migration, and replication on Cisco MDS 9000 family switches. The Fabric Application Interface Standard (FAIS)-based API and the SANTap protocol on the Cisco MDS 9000 family storage services modules (SSMs) accommodate numerous partner applications. The Cisco MDS 9000 family SSMs take advantage of all Fibre Channel features and services offered by the Cisco MDS 9000 SAN-OS Software, simplifying security, diagnostics, and management.

Network-Hosted Applications

The Cisco MDS 9000 family network-hosted storage applications architecture overcomes inherent bottlenecks associated with other virtualization architectures. Performance can be easily scaled to levels required by the largest organizations. Because Cisco MDS 9000 family network-hosted storage applications are switch based, any host can access any virtual volume in the fabric, independent of the host's attachment point in the SAN. A single point of management, transparent data mobility and migration, improved storage use, and a single set of copy services across heterogeneous storage capabilities are supported for Cisco MDS 9000 family network-hosted applications.

Network-Assisted Applications

Cisco MDS 9000 family network-assisted storage applications offer deployment flexibility and investment protection by allowing appliance-based storage applications for any server or storage device in the SAN without rewiring. Easy insertion and provisioning of appliance-based storage applications are achieved by moving the appliance out of the primary I/O between servers and storage. Also, host-side agents are reduced or eliminated, simplifying heterogeneous OS support.

The SANTap protocol allows appliances to get an I/O copy for data replication, continuous data protection, and data migration without affecting the integrity, availability, and performance of the primary I/O between servers and storage. Cisco MDS 9000 family network-assisted storage applications with SANTap provide highly scalable solutions allowing efficient workload distribution to multiple appliances based on the application and source-and-target combinations.

Network-Accelerated Serverless Backup

Network-accelerated serverless backup using the SCSI-2 EXTENDED COPY command allows high-speed backup and recovery applications to use the Cisco MDS 9000 family for data movement without changing the existing backup environment. I/O and processing are offloaded from media servers, resulting in more efficient backups, fewer media servers and host bus adapters (HBAs), and fewer administrative tasks.