16-Port Multilayer Fabric Switch

Scalable 16-Port Multilayer Fabric Switch

The Cisco MDS 9216A Multilayer Fabric Switch (Figure 1) brings new capability and investment protection to the fabric switch market. Sharing a consistent architecture with the Cisco DWDM-XFP-59.79= Series, the Cisco MDS 9216A combines multilayer intelligence with a modular chassis, making it an extremely capable and flexible fabric switch. Starting with 16 2-Gbps Fibre Channel ports, the expansion slot on the Cisco MDS 9216A allows for the addition of any current or future Cisco MDS 9000 Family module for up to 64 total ports.

Figure 1. Cisco MDS 9216A Multilayer Fabric Switch

KEYS FEATURES AND BENEFITS

The Cisco MDS 9216A Multilayer Fabric Switch is designed for building mission-critical enterprise storage area networks (SANs) where scalability, multilayer capability, resiliency, robust security, and ease of management are imperative. The Cisco MDS 9216A offers the following important features:

• Compelling economics-A modular design provides a 3-rack unit (RU) base system consisting of 16 2-Gbps Fibre Channel ports and can be expanded with a variety of optional switching modules to up to 64 total Fibre Channel ports.

• Cost-effective design-The Cisco MDS 9216A offers advanced management tools for overall lower total cost of ownership (TCO). It includes virtual SAN (VSAN) technology for hardware-enforced isolated environments within a single physical fabric for secure sharing of physical infrastructure, further decreasing TCO.

• Multiprotocol and multitransport-The multilayer architecture of the Cisco MDS 9216A helps enable a consistent feature set over a protocol-independent switch fabric and easily integrates Fibre Channel, IBM Fiber Connection (FICON), Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI), and Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) in one system.

• 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.

• High-performance inter-switch links (ISLs)-Supports up to 16 Fibre Channel links in a single PortChannel. Links can span any speed-matched ports on any module within a chassis for added scalability and resilience.

• Intelligent network services-Uses VSAN technology for hardware-enforced, isolated environments within a single physical fabric, 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 facilitate migration from SAN islands to enterprise-wide storage networks.

• Advanced FICON services-Supports 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 9200 Series switches from the mainframe management console.

• Comprehensive network 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.

• Open platform for intelligent storage applications-Provides the intelligent services necessary for hosting and/or accelerating storage applications such as network-hosted volume management, data migration and backup. Storage services modules can be installed in any Cisco MDS 9500 or MDS 9200 series chassis to provide application hosting and/or acceleration intelligence in the fabric.