Innovative Storage Services
Fibre Channel switching
The Cisco MDS 9000 Storage Services Modules includes 32 ports of Fibre Channel switching, eliminating the need to compromise between port density and I/O performance.
Fibre Channel Write Acceleration (FC-WA)
Designed for synchronous data replication, FC-WA reduces the effective latency between datacenters to dramatically enhance the performance and/or increase the distance of synchronous data-replication deployments. Additionally, with the embedded SCSI flow services, SCSI flows are monitored for statistics gathering.
Network-accelerated serverless backup
The Cisco Storage Services Module provides a high-speed network-accelerated serverless backup interface through SCSI-2 EXTENDED COPY to allow backup and recovery applications to use the network for the data movement, without changing the existing backup environment.
The I/O and processing are offloaded from the media server, resulting in more efficient backups, fewer media servers, and reduced server and administration tasks.
Network-assisted storage applications
The SANTap protocol between a Cisco MDS 9000 Family switch and an appliance allows the appliance to get an I/O copy for data replication, continuous data protection and data migration without impacting the integrity, availability, and performance of the primary I/O between servers and storage.
You can deploy network-assisted storage applications without having appliances residing in the primary data path. SANTap reduces implementation risk by facilitating gradual introduction of services for staging.
Works across heterogeneous OS
Easy insertion and provisioning of appliance-based storage applications is achieved by eliminating the service disruption caused by inserting appliances in-band. SANTap also reduces or eliminates host-side agents and makes appliance-based storage applications work across heterogeneous operating systems without creating a separate agent for each OS.
Flexibility and investment protection
SANTap offers deployment flexibility and investment protection by enabling appliance-based storage application for any server or storage device in the SAN without rewiring. Moreover, multiple appliance-based storage applications can be concurrently added to servers and storage.
Scalabiity
In addition, SANTap provides a scalability solution for appliance-based storage applications by allowing for distribution of workload to multiple appliances based on application and source-and-target combinations. The following storage applications can take advantage of these benefits:
- Kashya KBX5000
- Topio TDPS Fabric Edition
- Xiotech TimeScale Replication Appliance
- FalconStor IPStor with SANTap Option
Network-hosted storage applications
The Cisco MDS 9000 Family network-hosted storage applications architecture overcomes the inherent bottlenecks associated with other virtualization architectures. Virtualization performance can be easily scaled to the level required by even the largest organizations. Simply adding Cisco MDS 9000 Family Storage Services Modules adds virtualization performance and host connectivity in increments of 32 ports.
Because Cisco MDS 9000 Family network-hosted storage applications are switch-based, any host can access any virtual volume from anywhere in the fabric, independent of the host's attachment point in the storage area network (SAN).
Simplified security, diagnostics, and management
In addition to virtualization services, the Cisco MDS 9000 Family Storage Services Module takes advantage of all of the Fibre Channel features and services offered by other Cisco MDS 9000 Family Switching Modules, and all of the advanced SAN-OS features available on the Cisco MDS 9000 Family platform, simplifying security, diagnostics, and management.
With hosts and storage devices connecting anywhere in the network, virtualization provides a single point of management, transparent data mobility and migration, improved storage utilization, and a single set of copy services across heterogeneous storage.
Integrated network services
Cisco MDS 9000 Family intelligent fabric applications provide a level of integration with intelligent SAN services that is unavailable to host based virtualization and storage solutions. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family platform with the integrated Cisco Storage Services Module delivers the intelligence and advanced features required to make multilayer, intelligent SANs a reality, including hardware-enabled innovations that dramatically improve scalability, availability, security, and manageability of storage networks-resulting in increased utility and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
Multiprotocol intelligence
The Cisco MDS 9000 Family multiprotocol platform is designed for cost-optimized, high-performance, and highly available storage networks. It uses disk pooling, replication, data migration, continuous data protection, and Network-Accelerated Serverless Backup that is enabled through the Cisco MDS 9000 Family Storage Services Module.
With support of the IETF standard Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) protocol over Ethernet, and Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP), intelligent fabric applications using the Cisco MDS 9000 Family platform can take full advantage of SAN extension and cost-effective connectivity.
Simplifies deployment of virtualization and storage services
Organizations can provide virtualization and storage services to clients attached either directly through Fibre Channel or by using the iSCSI protocol for cost-effective connectivity to shared storage pools. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family FCIP capability simplifies deployment of virtualization and storage services over extended distances, eliminating the need for separate channel-extension devices. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family platform is designed to support future storage protocols so that users can migrate to new technologies while retaining a consistent set of features, services, and management tools.
