IBM MDS 9509 User Manual

Intelligent storage networking for IBM System Storage IT

The Cisco MDS 9509 for IBM System Storage offers 1, 2, 4, 8 and 10 Gbps link speeds with up to
336 Fibre Channel ports in a 14U enclosure

simplification and business continuity solutions

Cisco MDS 9509 for IBM System Storage

High performance and manageability

for SANs

The Cisco MDS 9509 for IBM®

System Storage™ provides 1, 2, 4,

8 and 10 Gbps Fibre Channel switch

connectivity and intelligent network

services to help improve the security,

performance and manageability

required to consolidate geographically

dispersed storage devices into a large

enterprise SAN.

Highlights

■

Provides Fibre Channel

throughput of up to 8 gigabits

per second (Gbps) per port and

up to 64 Gbps with each

PortChannel Inter-Switch Link

connection

■

Offers scalability from 12 to

336 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbps Fibre

Channel ports

■

Offers 10-Gbps ISL ports for

inter-data center links over

metro optical networks

■

High-availability design with

support for non-disruptive

firmware upgrades

■

Includes Virtual SAN (VSAN)

capability for SAN consolidation

into virtual SAN islands on a

single physical fabric

■

Enterprise, SAN Extension over

IP, Mainframe and Storage

Services Enabler and Fabric

Manager Server packages pro-

vide added function and value

Improved internal bandwidth for higher

scalability

The Cisco MDS 9509 for IBM System

Storage utilizes two Supervisor-2

modules to support high availability

and performance. The Supervisor-2

Module combines an intelligent control

module and a high-performance cross-

bar switch fabric in a single unit. It uses

Fabric Shortest Path First (FSPF)

multipath routing, which supports load

balancing across a maximum of

16 equal-cost paths that dynamically

reroute traffic if a switch fails.

■

Offers Gigabit Ethernet IP (GbE)

ports for iSCSI or FCIP connec-

tivity over global networks

Each Supervisor-2 Module provides the

necessary crossbar bandwidth to

deliver full system performance in the

Cisco MDS 9509 director with up to

seven Fibre Channel switching mod-

ules. Loss or removal of a single cross-

bar module has no impact on system

performance.

Connectivity, compatibility and traffic

management

The Cisco MDS 9509 for IBM System

Storage requires a minimum of one

switching module and allows a maxi-

mum of seven. These modules are

available in configurations of 4 Gbps

(12, 24 and 48-port) and 8 Gbps

(24 and 48-port), enabling the Cisco

MDS 9509 to support 12 to 336 Fibre

Channel ports per chassis. Optionally, a

4-port 10 Gbps Fibre Channel module

is available for high-performance Inter-

Switch Link (ISL) connections over

metro optical networks.

Switching modules are hot-swappable

with small form-factor pluggable (SFP)

optic transceivers and LC interface

support. The PortChannel capability

enables users to aggregate up to

16 physical Inter-Switch Links into a

single logical bundle, providing opti-

mized bandwidth utilization across

all links.

12-, 24- and 48-port 4 Gbps switching

modules: Configuring the switch for the

application environment

The 12-port 4 Gbps Fibre Channel

Switching Module delivers high

performance for the most demanding

storage networking applications.

Autosensing 1, 2 and 4 Gbps ports

deliver up to 96 Gbps of continuous

aggregate bandwidth, which provides

up to 8 Gbps throughput per port

(full duplex). The 12-port switching

module is well suited for attaching

highest-performance 4 Gbps enabled

servers and storage subsystems as

well as to connect to other switches

using 4 Gbps ISL connections.

The 24-port 4 Gbps Fibre Channel

Switching Module handles high-

performance storage networking

applications. Twenty-four autosensing

1, 2 and 4 Gbps ports deliver sustained

bandwidth to meet the performance

requirements of enterprise-class

storage and servers. Port bandwidth

reservation enables 1, 2 or 4 Gbps

switching bandwidth to be dedicated to

a port, including highest-performance

ISL ports. The 24-port switching

module is well suited for attaching

high-performance servers and storage

subsystems as well as to connect to

other switches using ISL connections.

The 48-port 4 Gbps Fibre Channel

Switching Module offers an optimal

balance of performance and port den-

sity. Forty-eight autosensing 1, 2 and

4 Gbps ports deliver sustained band-

width to meet a wide range of perform-

ance requirements for a mixture of

SMB and enterprise-class storage and

servers. Port bandwidth reservation

enables 1, 2 or 4 Gbps switching band-

width to be flexibly dedicated to ports

to meet a wide range of application

requirements. This module provides a

low-cost means of attaching lower-

performance servers and storage

subsystems to the high-performance

crossbar switch fabric without requiring

ISLs.

24-, 48- and 4/44-port 8 Gbps switching

modules: Configuring the switch for fast

link speeds

The 24-port 8 Gbps Fibre Channel

Switching Module provides uncom-

promising performance of up to

96 Gbps of continuous aggregate

bandwidth, providing up to 16 Gbps

throughput per port (full duplex). This

module is best suited for connection to

4 and 8 Gbps high-performance stor-

age devices and for ISL connectivity.

The 48-port 8 Gbps Fibre Channel

Switching Module delivers an ideal

balance of performance and scalability.

Its 48 autosensing 1, 2, 4 and 8 Gbps

ports deliver up to 96 Gbps of full-

duplex bandwidth to meet the perform-

ance demands of enterprise-class or

highly virtualized servers. Through easy-

to-use traffic engineering capabilities,

the 48-port 8 Gbps Fibre Channel

Switching Module offers the flexibility to

provide predictable high-performance

storage and inter-switch connectivity,

fully utilizing the available bandwidth.

The 4/44-port 8 Gbps Host-

Optimized Fibre Channel Switching

Module is optimized for host connec-

tivity. The module enables storage net-

work consolidation with high-density,

cost-effective connectivity. Four 8-Gbps

ports and 44 4-Gbps ports deliver

96 Gbps of full-duplex bandwidth,

sufficient for the majority of today’s

standard servers.

4-port 10 Gbps switching module:

Configuring the switch for metro business

continuity

The 4-port 10 Gbps Fibre Channel

Switching Module is built to deliver

high-bandwidth links for metro business

continuity solutions. The module uses

hot-swappable X2 form-factor plug-

gable, SC type transceivers. The mod-

ule is well suited for ISL links between

data centers across metro optical

networks.

Port Bandwidth Reservation, available

on all switching modules, enables

switching bandwidth to be dedicated to

specific ports. This unique feature of

the Cisco MDS 9000 family enables

great flexibility in bandwidth allocation

to support a mix of applications

within a single module, including high-

performance ISLs. By combining vari-

ous switching modules in a single

modular chassis, it is possible to design

storage networks optimized for cost

and performance in a wide range

of application environments. This appli-

cation-oriented approach to port

deployment can reduce the number of

switches and ISLs required in a storage

network, in many cases eliminating the

need for core-edge network topologies.

A switch built for high availability

The Cisco MDS 9509 for IBM System

Storage combines support for non-

disruptive software upgrades, stateful

process restart/failover and redundancy

of active hardware components to sup-

port director-class availability. The

Supervisor Module-2 has the ability to

automatically restart failed processes

and complete synchronization between

the active and standby Supervisor

Modules to help support stateful failover

without disruption to traffic.

A switch for virtual servers and

applications

Server virtualization means that a SAN

must concurrently support thousands of

diverse, tiered applications, each with

unique performance requirements.

These applications and the virtual

machines (VMs) they run on are not

bounded by physical servers and net-

work ports. The Cisco MDS 9000 family

provides deterministic hardware per-

formance and a rich feature set that

allows VMs to have the same SAN

attributes as a physical server. On a

per-VM basis, the MDS 9000 family NX-

OS firmware offers Virtual SAN (VSAN)

isolation, quality of service (QoS) poli-

cies, access control, performance mon-

itoring, and data protection to enable

scalability and mobility of VMs.

A switch for virtual SANs

Ideal for efficient, secure SAN consoli-

dation, ANSI T11 compliant VSANs

allow more efficient storage network uti-

lization by creating hardware-based iso-

lated environments within a single