Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Directors

Scalability, Convergence, and Intelligence

Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Directors are high-performance, protocol-independent, director-class SAN switches. Cisco MDS Directors are designed to meet stringent requirements of enterprise data center storage environments.

Features and Capabilities

Cisco MDS 9500 Series Directors offer:

Multi-protocol architecture – Support for 1/2/4/8/10-Gbps and 10-Gbps Fibre Channel (FC), 10-Gbps Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), and 1/2/4/8 and 1/2/4/8/10-Gbps FICON
Scalability – 8.4-Tbps system bandwidth and up to 528 1/2/4/8–Gbps autosensing FC ports per chassis
Intelligent network services such as Virtual SAN technology, ACLs, intelligent frame processing, and fabric-wide QoS
Platform for smart storage services, including Cisco I/O Accelerator (IOA), Storage Media Encryption (SME), and Data Mobility Manager (DMM)

Specifications at a Glance

Chassis Configuration

Eleven line card slots; two supervisor slots, two crossbar switching fabric slots, fan trays, power supplies

Performance and Scalability

8.4-Tbps internal switching bandwidth
1/2/4/8-Gbps autosensing Fibre Channel port speeds supported; 10-Gbps fixed rate
10-Gbps fixed rate FCoE port speeds supported
1-Gbps fixed rate Ethernet port speeds supported