In 2003, in the largest internal storage area network (SAN) deployment in Cisco history, Cisco IT installed 25 Cisco MDS 9000 Multilayer Director switches in five production data centers worldwide. The migration and storage consolidation enabled Cisco to realize significant savings.

This design guide includes detailed calculations on how Cisco was able to consolidate storage and cut the total cost of storage ownership by nearly two-thirds in three years by:

  • Reducing maintenance costs of more than US$4 million per year for three years
  • Deferring expansion of existing data centers through space savings with the MDS 9000 (estimated cost for expansion was US$27 million over three years)
  • Reducing a calculated Net Present Value of more than US$14 million with an internal rate of return of over 70% total cost of ownership per megabyte of storage, from $0.12 annually in 2002 to $0.035 in 2005