Delivering twice the bandwidth of previous Cisco MDS Fibre Channel switching modules, the Cisco MDS 9000 24-Port 8 Gb FC switching module allows you to build consolidated SANs that require less space, power, and cooling, dramatically reducing your TCO.
The Cisco MDS 9000 24-Port 8 Gb FC switching module provides 24 ports and scales up to 528 ports per chassis, delivering the highest performance for your most demanding storage networking environments.
Up to 192 Gb/sec of full-duplex bandwidth
The front panel ports of the switching module deliver up to 192 Gb/sec of full-duplex bandwidth, making it ideal for attaching 4 and 8 Gb/sec enabled storage subsystems, as well as ISL connectivity.
Up to 1584 ports per rack
For maximum flexibility and density, the module supports industry-leading densities of up to 528 8 Gb/sec FC ports per chassis and 1584 ports per rack.
High-Performance ISLs
Ideal for ISL connectivity
The Cisco MDS 9000 24-port 8 Gb FC switching module supports up to 16 links in a single PortChannel. Links can span any port on the module with a chassis for added scalability and resilience.
Full link bandwidth
Up to 4095 buffer-to-buffer credits can be assigned to a single FC port. This provides industry-leading extension of storage networks up to 8000 km at 1 Gb/sec, 2000 km at 4 Gb/sec, or 1000 km at 8 Gb/sec, all while maintaining full link bandwidth.
Intelligent Network Services
Enabling migration to enterprise SANs
The Cisco MDS 9000 24-Port 8 Gb FC switching module's intelligent network services provide integrated support for VSAN technology, access control lists (ACLs) for hardware-based intelligent frame processing, and advanced traffic-management features.
These features, including Fibre Channel Congestion Control (FCC) and fabric-wide quality of service (QoS), enable migration from SAN islands to enterprise storage networks.
VSANs
Designed for consolidation
Ideal for efficient, secure SAN consolidation, ANSI T11-compliant VSANs allow improved SAN utilization by creating hardware-based isolated environments within a single physical SAN fabric or switch.
Foundation of a virtualized datacenter
Each VSAN can be zoned as a typical SAN, maintaining its own fabric services for added scalability. Through unique, industry-first virtualization features, VSANs benefits can be extended to virtualized serves, providing the foundation for an end-to-end virtualized datacenter.
Deploy multisite and heterogeneous SANs
The Cisco MDS 9000 24-Port 8 Gb FC switching module’s integrated, hardware-based VSANs and Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR) enable you to deploy large-scale multisite and heterogeneous SAN topologies. The integration into port-level hardware allows any port of any virtual machine (VM) within a system or fabric to be partitioned into any VSAN.
No compromise
VSANs allow hardware-based separation of Fibre Channel and FICON traffic switched on a single physical SAN, lowering overall TCO without compromising your network’s scalability, availability, manageability, and security.
Eliminate external routing appliances
Integrated, hardware-based IVR provides line rate routing between any ports within a system or fabric without the need for external routing appliances.
Advanced FICON Services
Multiprotocol connectivity
With its multiprotocol connectivity, the Cisco MDS 9000 24-Port 8 Gb FC switching module transparently integrates FICON protocol, FICON Control Unit Port (CUP) management, and switch cascading to enable mainframe connectivity.
Supports 8 Gb FICON environments
The module support 8 Gb FICON environments, including cascaded FICON fabrics, VSAN-enabled intermix of mainframe and open systems environments, and N-Port ID virtualization for mainframe Linux platforms. CUP support enables in-band management of Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches from the mainframe management console.
Comprehensive Security Framework
End-to-end security
The switching module's comprehensive security framework supports:
RADIUS and TACACS+, Fibre Channel Security Protocol (FC-SP)
Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol
Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3)
