Ease Of Management - Cisco MDS 9120 Datasheet

The Cisco MDS 9100 Series supports Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR), the industry's first routing functionality for Fibre Channel. IVR allows selective
transfer of data traffic between specific initiators and targets on different VSANs while maintaining isolation of control traffic within each VSAN.
With IVR, data can transit VSAN boundaries while maintaining control plane isolation, thereby maintaining fabric stability and availability.
Industry's Most Advanced Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Tools
Management of large-scale storage networks requires proactive diagnostics, tools to verify connectivity and route latency, and mechanisms for
capturing and analyzing traffic. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family integrates the industry's most advanced analysis and debug tools. Power-on self test
(POST) and online diagnostics provide proactive health monitoring. Cisco MDS 9100 Series provides the integrated hardware functionality required
to implement diagnostic capabilities such as FC Traceroute for detailing the exact path and timing of flows and Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) to
intelligently capture network traffic. Once traffic has been captured, it can then be analyzed with the Cisco Fabric Analyzer, an embedded Fibre
Channel analyzer. Comprehensive port and flow-based statistics enable sophisticated performance analysis and service level agreement (SLA)
accounting. With the MDS 9000 Family, Cisco delivers the most comprehensive toolset for troubleshooting and analysis of an organization's storage
network.
Comprehensive Solution for Robust Security
Recognizing the need for airtight security in storage networks, the Cisco MDS 9100 Series offers an extensive security framework to protect highly
sensitive data crossing today's enterprise networks. The Cisco MDS 9100 Series employs intelligent packet inspection at the port level, including the
application of ACLs for hardware enforcement of Zones, VSANs, and advanced Port Security features.
Extended zoning capabilities are enabled to ensure that LUNs are accessible only by specific hosts (LUN zoning), to limit SCSI read command for a
certain zone (read-only zoning), and to restrict broadcasts to only the selected zones (broadcast zones). VSANs are used to achieve higher security
and greater stability by providing complete isolation among devices that are connected to the same physical SAN. In addition, Fibre Channel
Security Protocol (FC-SP) provides switch-switch and host-switch DH-CHAP authentication supporting RADIUS or TACACS+, to ensure that only
authorized devices access protected storage networks.
This functionality, in conjunction with management access and control plane security, makes the Cisco MDS 9000 Family the most secure platform
of its kind.
AVAILABILITY
The Cisco MDS 9100 Series was designed for class-leading availability. Hot-swappable, redundant fans and power supplies and the unique ability to
automatically restart failed supervisor processes combine to define a new standard for fabric switch availability. High availability is implemented at
the fabric level through the industry's most robust and highest-performance ISLs. PortChannel capability allows users to aggregate up to 15 physical
links (Cisco MDS 9140) into one logical bundle. The bundle can sustain the failure of any physical link without causing a reset. Additionally,
Fabric-Shortest-Path-First (FSPF) multipathing provides the intelligence to load balance across up to 15 equal cost paths (Cisco MDS 9140) and, if a
switch fails, to dynamically reroute traffic. The Cisco MDS 9100 Series takes fabric-switch availability to a new level, minimizing TCO.

EASE OF MANAGEMENT

Delivering on the promise of SANs means delivering on management capabilities. To meet the needs of all users, the Cisco MDS 9100 Series
provides three principal modes of management: Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI, Cisco Fabric Manager, and integration with third-party storage
management tools. The Cisco MDS 9100 Series presents the user with a consistent, logical CLI. Adhering to the syntax of the widely known Cisco
®
IOS CLI, the Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI is easy to learn and delivers broad management functionality. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI is an
extremely efficient and direct interface designed to provide optimal functionality to administrators in enterprise environments. Cisco Fabric Manager
is a responsive, easy-to-use Java application that simplifies management across multiple switches and fabrics. Cisco Fabric Manager enables
administrators to perform vital tasks such as topology discovery, fabric configuration and verification, provisioning, monitoring, and fault
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