MDS 9000 Family Fibre Channel

Key Features and Benefits

Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fibre Channel 4-Gbps switching modules offer the following features:

• Autosensing 1/2/4-Gbps interfaces-Provide high-performance connectivity and compatibility with existing devices.

• High-performance inter-switch links (ISLs)-Support up to sixteen links in a single PortChannel; links can span any speed-matched ports on any module within a chassis for added scalability and resilience. Up to 4095 buffer-to-buffer credits can be assigned to a single Fibre Channel port, providing industry-leading extension of storage networks up to 8,000 km at 1 Gbps, 4000 km at 2 Gbps, or 2000 km at 4 Gbps while maintaining full link bandwidth.

• Intelligent network services-Provide integrated support for VSAN technology, access control lists (ACLs) for hardware-based intelligent frame processing, and advanced traffic-management features such as Fibre Channel Congestion Control (FCC) and fabric-wide quality of service (QoS) to enable migration from SAN islands to enterprise-wide storage networks.

• Integrated hardware-based VSANs and Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR)-Enables deployment of large-scale multisite and heterogeneous SAN topologies. Integration into port-level hardware allows any port within a system or fabric to be partitioned into any VSAN. Integrated hardware-based inter-VSAN routing provides line-rate routing between any ports within a system or fabric without the need for external routing appliances.

• Advanced FICON services-Supports 1/2/4-Gbps FICON environments, including cascaded FICON fabrics, VSAN-enabled intermix of mainframe and open systems environments, and N_Port ID virtualization for mainframe Linux partitions. CUP (Control Unit Port) support enables in-band management of Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches from the mainframe management console.

• Comprehensive security framework-Supports 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), VSANs, hardware-enforced zoning, ACLs, and per-VSAN role-based access control.

• Sophisticated diagnostics-Provides intelligent diagnostics, protocol decoding, and network analysis tools as well as integrated Call Home capability for added reliability, faster problem resolution, and reduced service costs.

• Port density and configuration flexibility-Provides 12-port, 24-port, and 48-port configurations to optimize performance, flexibility, and density; supports port densities of up to 528 Fibre Channel ports per chassis and 1584 ports per rack, more than twice the port density of competitive solutions.