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Table Of Contents
Cisco MDS 9000
IP Storage Services ModulesExtending the Benefits of Fibre Channel SANs
Integration with Cisco MDS 9000 Switching Services
Scaling Remote Connectivity with FCIP
Cisco MDS 9000 FCIP Enhances SAN Security and Stability
iSCSI for Cost-Effective Extension of SAN Storage to IP-Enabled Servers
Transparent and Proxy Initiator Operation
Data Sheet
Cisco MDS 9000
IP Storage Services Modules
Highlights
Cisco® MDS 9000 IP Storage Services Modules offer the following features:
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Flexible IP storage services—4-port and 8-port configurations deliver both Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) and Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) IP storage services, software configurable on a port-by-port basis.
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Figure 1
Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services Modules Deliver Four or Eight Ports of Wire-Rate iSCSI or FCIP over Gigabit Ethernet
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Extending the Benefits of Fibre Channel SANs
Companies investing in Fibre Channel SAN infrastructure have realized significant benefits in increased storage utilization and availability, simplified management, and more effective disaster recovery and business continuance strategies. Until now, however, SAN deployment and its resulting benefits have been primarily focused on mission-critical application islands within individual data centers. The difficulty and cost associated with migrating the large number of data center midrange servers to Fibre Channel have made it impractical for IT managers to extend the benefits of SAN to midrange applications. Using open-standard IP-based technology, the Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services modules eliminate the barriers to SAN expansion, enabling businesses to extend the reach of their Fibre Channel SANs throughout the data center and between data centers. The dual functionality of the Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services modules supports interconnection of remote SAN islands and extends SAN connectivity to IP-enabled servers using the FCIP and iSCSI protocols, respectively.
Integration with Cisco MDS 9000 Switching Services
The IP Storage Services modules seamlessly integrate into the Cisco MDS 9000 Family of Multilayer Directors and Fabric Switches. Traffic can be switched between any IP storage port and any other port on a Cisco MDS 9000 switch. The Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services modules support the full range of services available on other MDS 9000 Fibre Channel Switching modules including VSANs, security, and traffic management.
Flexible Configuration
The DS-X9304-SMIP and the DS-X9308-SMIP support, respectively, four and eight hot-swappable, Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP), LC Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. Modules can be configured with either short or long wavelength SFPs for connectivity up to 550 meters and 10 kilometers, respectively. Additionally, all ports are configurable for both FCIP and iSCSI operation on a port-by-port basis. Ports configured for FCIP operation can be further configured to support up to three virtual ISL connections.
FCIP for Remote SAN Extension
Data distribution, data protection, and business continuance strategies are critical components of information-centric businesses. The ability to efficiently replicate critical data on a global scale ensures a higher level of protection for valuable corporate information, promotes increased utilization of backup resources, reduces the impact of a catastrophic failure at a single site, and lowers total cost of storage ownership. The Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services modules use the open-standard FCIP protocol to break the distance barrier of current Fibre Channel solutions and enable interconnection of SAN islands over extended distances.
Scaling Remote Connectivity with FCIP
A major advantage of FCIP for remote connectivity is its ability to extend distances. However, distance at the expense of performance is an unacceptable tradeoff for IT organizations that demand full utilization of expensive WAN bandwidth. The IP Storage Services modules implement TCP Extensions for High Performance (RFC 1323) that allow for efficient full-bandwidth operation over greatly increased distances relative to standard TCP. The introduction of FCIP compression enables to increase the effective WAN bandwidth utilization reducing the enterprise's costs for expensive wide area infrastructure. The Cisco SAN-OS FCIP Write Acceleration feature significantly improves application performance, reducing response times, and maximizes WAN throughput by minimizing the impact of write I/O latency over WAN links.
Cisco MDS 9000 FCIP Enhances SAN Security and Stability
Cisco IP Storage Services modules allow VSANs to extend across FCIP tunnels. The VSAN functionality integrated into every Cisco MDS 9000 switch enables deployment of enterprise-wide consolidated storage networks. VSANs enable more efficient SAN utilization by creating hardware-based isolated environments within a single SAN fabric. Each VSAN can be zoned as a typical SAN and maintains its own fabric services for added scalability and resilience. VSANs allow the cost of SAN infrastructure to be shared among more users, and ensure absolute segregation, providing traffic security, and retaining independent control of configuration on a VSAN-by-VSAN basis.
iSCSI for Cost-Effective Extension of SAN Storage to IP-Enabled Servers
Many IT managers have been hesitant to extend SAN access beyond their mission-critical applications to midrange data center applications because of the complexity and cost involved in upgrading large numbers of midrange servers to Fibre Channel. The Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services modules address these limitations by enabling IT organizations to extend their storage networks using cost-effective IP infrastructure. All the benefits of SAN, including increased storage utilization, centralized backups, easier addition of incremental storage capacity, management simplification, and reduced overall total cost of ownership (TCO), can be extended to a new range of applications.
Because the Cisco IP Storage Services modules are an integral component of the Cisco MDS 9000 Family,
IP-connected servers will enjoy the same SAN scalability, availability, manageability, and intelligent services as those servers connected using Fibre Channel, while maintaining the cost and ease-of-use benefits of IP. The Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services modules provides the flexibility to architect a cost-optimized storage network.Transparent and Proxy Initiator Operation
The Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services modules provide transparent mapping of SCSI I/O operations between iSCSI and Fibre Channel domains. When IP-attached servers are added to a Cisco MDS 9000 Family storage network, they are presented to the Fibre Channel storage devices as native Fibre Channel hosts. Conversely, Fibre Channel storage devices are presented as iSCSI targets to the iSCSI hosts. This transparent access preserves correct operation of storage tools, such as zoning managers, which require visibility of all hosts.
Additionally, hosts have access to consistent SAN services independent of the transport they use to attach to the SAN. As iSCSI hosts are added to the SAN, they are added to the appropriate VSAN, Fibre Channel Name Server, Zone Server, and Cisco MDS 9000 Family management infrastructure.
Specifications
Interfaces
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Scalability
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IP and Ethernet Standards
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Indicators
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Environmental
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Physical Characteristics
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Regulatory Compliance
When installed in a system, the Cisco MDS 9000 IP Storage Services modules meet the following compliance and safety standards:
Safety Compliance
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EMC Compliance
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Posted: Tue Apr 27 14:30:29 PDT 2004
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