DS-C9124V-8PETK9

Description

The Cisco MDS 9124V 64-Gbps 24-Port Fibre Channel Switch is a high-speed Fibre Channel switch designed for small, midsize, and large enterprises deploying cloud-scale applications with dense virtualized servers. Here’s an overview of its key features:

1. High-speed connectivity: The switch provides 64-Gbps non-oversubscribed line-rate ports, delivering high-speed Fibre Channel connectivity for all-flash arrays and high-performance hosts. This ensures optimal performance for demanding workloads.

2. Advanced analytics and telemetry: The switch is equipped with state-of-the-art analytics and telemetry capabilities built into its next-generation ASIC chipset. This enables comprehensive monitoring and analysis of the SAN infrastructure, optimizing performance and troubleshooting issues.

3. Seamless transition to NVMe/FC: The switch allows for seamless transition to Fibre Channel Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe/FC) workloads without the need for hardware upgrades in the SAN. This future-proof design ensures compatibility and flexibility for evolving storage requirements.

4. Automatic zoning: For small-scale SANs, the switch offers automatic zoning, simplifying deployment and management. This feature eliminates the need for manual configuration and streamlines the setup process.

5. High scalability: The switch provides higher scale for Fibre Channel control-plane functions, Virtual SANs, fabric login (FLOGI), device alias and name server scale, empowering mid- to large-size SAN architectures. It offers a single port group of 24 ports, allowing for efficient connectivity.

6. Enhanced Buffer-to-Buffer (B2B) credits: The switch is equipped with enhanced B2B credits, enabling efficient data transfer and reducing latency. This feature contributes to optimal performance in SAN environments.

7. Hardware-assisted Fibre Channel link encryption: The switch supports hardware-assisted link encryption, providing enhanced security for data transmission over Fibre Channel links. This feature ensures data confidentiality and integrity.

8. Diagnostic features: The switch offers advanced diagnostic features such as ISL and HBA diagnostics, remote SFP diagnostics, remote port beaconing, and link level Forward Error Correction (FEC) with HBA ports. These features enable efficient troubleshooting and monitoring of the SAN infrastructure.

9. Network Port Virtualization (NPV) mode: The switch can be configured in NPV mode, allowing for integration into large-scale SAN architectures built with SAN core directors. This flexibility enables expansion of 64-Gbps connectivity to server racks.

10. Bidirectional airflow: The switch is designed with bidirectional airflow, allowing for flexible installation in different rack environments. This feature ensures proper cooling and efficient operation in data center deployments.

The Cisco MDS 9124V 64-Gbps 24-Port Fibre Channel Switch provides high-speed, scalable, and secure Fibre Channel connectivity for storage environments. Its advanced features and flexibility make it suitable for small-scale to large-scale SAN architectures, enabling efficient data transfer and performance optimization.

The Cisco MDS 9124V 64-Gbps 24-Port Fibre Channel Switch offers a range of features and benefits:

1. High performance: The switch delivers consistent 64-Gbps low-latency performance across all traffic conditions, ensuring optimal performance for demanding workloads.

2. Fully integrated SAN Analytics: The switch is equipped with state-of-the-art data traffic analytics and telemetry capabilities, providing real-time performance data and enabling seamless integration with analytics visualization platforms.

3. Cisco Dynamic Ingress Rate Limiting (DIRL): DIRL detects congestion and dynamically rate limits congested or slow-drain devices to prevent adverse effects on other devices, ensuring efficient traffic management.

4. CapEx savings: The switch supports backward compatibility, allowing users to deploy 64-Gbps ports with existing 32- or 16-Gbps transceivers. This provides investment protection and the option to upgrade to 64-Gbps transceivers and adapters when needed.

5. High availability: The switch is designed for 99.999% availability, with redundancy on major components such as power supplies and cooling subsystems, ensuring continuous operation and minimizing downtime.

6. Reliability: The switch incorporates features such as Forward Error Correction (FEC), Buffer-to-Buffer State Change Notification (BBSCN), and buffer-to-buffer credit recovery to ensure reliable and error-free data transmission.

7. Next-generation ASIC: Powered by a high-performance 64G ASIC, the switch delivers advanced capabilities and performance for demanding SAN environments.

8. Scalability: The switch provides increased fabric scalability, allowing for flexibility in deploying various SAN architectures.

9. Telemetry: The switch offers built-in telemetry capabilities, enabling inspection of Fibre Channel and SCSI/NVMe headers without external taps or appliances. Metrics can be analyzed on the switch or exported for further analytics purposes.

10. Intelligent services: The switch supports various intelligent services such as auto-zone, Smart Zoning, slow-drain detection and isolation, Virtual SAN (VSAN) and Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR), fabric-wide Quality of Service (QoS), and traffic encryption for enhanced functionality and security.

11. Sophisticated diagnostics: The switch provides intelligent diagnostics tools, including ISL diagnostics, HBA diagnostics, remote SFP-error collection, Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN), Call Home capability, Slow Drain Monitoring, and Online Health Management System, enabling faster problem resolution and reducing service costs.

12. Virtual-machine awareness: The switch offers visibility into virtual machines accessing storage LUNs or namespaces, allowing for performance monitoring and analysis at the virtual machine level.

13. Programmable fabric: The switch provides a programmable fabric with Cisco NX-API, allowing for flexible and rapid programming of utilities for the SAN, as well as integration with Ansible and Python modules.

14. Secure-boot and anti-counterfeiting technology: The switch utilizes onboard hardware to protect critical components from malicious attacks, ensuring system integrity and security.

The Cisco MDS 9124V 64-Gbps 24-Port Fibre Channel Switch offers high performance, scalability, advanced analytics, and a range of intelligent services to optimize SAN environments and meet the demands of modern storage requirements.

The adoption of 64-Gbps fabric switches in SAN architectures brings several benefits to data center environments:

1. Server port consolidation: With the increasing density of virtual machines per rack and the need for higher bandwidth HBA ports, 64-Gbps fabric switches allow for the consolidation of server ports. The Cisco MDS 9124V, with its 24 ports in a 1RU form factor, provides a solution for consolidating server connectivity and optimizing rack space.

2. Simplification: By consolidating ports and connectivity, SAN management is simplified and complexity is reduced. The MDS 9124V supports auto-zoning, enabling zero-touch automatic zoning without the need for manual configuration. Additionally, the switch can be deployed in NPIV core mode with NPV switches, streamlining management without the need for additional NPV switches.

3. Multiprotocol convergence: The higher bandwidth and lower latency of 64-Gbps links enable better performance for storage workloads, including newer protocols like NVMe over Fibre Channel. Multiprotocol convergence simplifies infrastructure and allows for better resource utilization.

4. Scale and performance: The MDS 9124V supports the scale and performance requirements of dedicated and standalone Fibre Channel SANs. With 64-Gbps connectivity, the switch provides high bandwidth and low latency for efficient storage operations without the need for additional switching infrastructure.

5. VSAN and IVR capabilities: The switch supports Virtual SANs (VSANs) and Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR), enabling efficient and secure SAN consolidation. VSANs create isolated environments within a single physical SAN fabric, allowing for efficient utilization of storage network resources. IVR enables selective transfer of data between initiators and targets on different VSANs while maintaining control plane isolation, improving scalability and simplifying management.

6. Robust network security: The MDS 9124V includes a comprehensive security framework to protect sensitive data in storage networks. Features such as Smart Zoning, intelligent packet inspection, authentication protocols, and digital certificates ensure secure access and prevent unauthorized devices from connecting to the fabric.

7. Ease of management: The switch provides multiple modes of management, including the Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI and integration with third-party storage management tools. The CLI adheres to the widely known Cisco NX-OS Software CLI syntax, making it easy to learn and use. Additionally, the switch supports Cisco Smart Licensing, simplifying the licensing process and allowing for centralized license management.

The adoption of 64-Gbps fabric switches in SAN architectures brings consolidation, simplification, multiprotocol convergence, scale, performance, security, and ease of management to data center environments. These benefits help organizations optimize their SAN infrastructure, improve performance, and enhance security in storage networks.

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