Cisco Mds 9120 Switch; Cisco Mds Fibre Channel Blade Switch For Ibm Bladecenter - Cisco MDS9120 - MDS 9120 Multilayer Fabric Switch Installation Manual

Cisco MDS Fibre Channel Blade Switch for IBM BladeCenter

S e n d d o c u m e n t a t i o n c o m m e n t s t o m d s f e e d b a c k - d o c @ c i s c o . c o m

Cisco MDS 9120 Switch

The Cisco MDS 9120 Switch has a total of 20 1/2-Gbps autosensing, optionally configurable ports. The
first group of four ports on the left-hand side are the bandwidth-optimized ports. They are delineated by
a white border. The remaining four groups of four ports each are the host-optimized port groups. See
Figure
Figure 1-5
Cisco MDS Fibre Channel Blade Switch for IBM BladeCenter
The Cisco MDS Fibre Channel Bladeswitch for IBM BladeCenter is designed for IBM BladeCenter
environments. The Cisco MDS Fibre Channel Blade Switch is based on the Cisco MDS 9000 Family
SAN switching technology, which integrates the Cisco MDS 9000 Family of switches and directors into
a blade-switch architecture. The advanced architecture of the Cisco MDS Fibre Channel Blade Switch
for IBM BladeCenter, along with 4-Gbps technology, provides outstanding performance between blade
switches and the rest of the Fibre Channel infrastructure.
The Cisco MDS Fibre Channel Blade Switch for IBM BladeCenter provides 4-Gbps Fibre Channel
performance to blade-server switching. It also provides network intelligence features such as virtual
SANs (VSANs), quality of service (QoS), and N-port identifier virtualization (NPIV). It also offers
nondisruptive software upgrades and on-demand port activation and is the most complete embedded
Fibre Channel switching available for the IBM BladeCenter, BladeCenter-T, and BladeCenter-H
platforms.
The Cisco MDS Fibre Channel Blade Switch for IBM BladeCenter provides up to 20 nonblocking 1-,
2-, and 4-GB Fibre Channel ports that are available in two configurations: 7 internal ports and 3 external
ports, or 14 internal ports and 6 external ports. Each port provides line-rate performance up to 4-Gbps
without any performance loss for integrated features such as VSANs, QoS, or Network Address
Translation (NAT). The Cisco MDS Fibre Channel Blade Switch for IBM BladeCenter supports up to 16
VSANs per blade switch.
Each external port on the Cisco MDS FC Blade Switch for IBM BladeCenter also provides line-rate
performance up to 4-Gbps for Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) or additional device connectivity such as
storage or host bus adapters (HBAs).
Cisco MDS 9100 Series Hardware Installation Guide
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1-5.
Cisco MDS 9120 Switch
Chapter 1 Product Overview
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