Cisco Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS Software Release 6.2 Datenbogen

 

 

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Virtual SANs 

Virtual SAN (VSAN) technology partitions a single physical SAN into multiple VSANs. Cisco MDS 9000 Family 

switches lead the market with VSAN support built into the switch hardware, and they have the most mature and 

comprehensive support for the industry

’s virtual fabric standard. VSAN capabilities allow Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS 

to logically divide a large physical fabric into separate, isolated environments to improve Fibre Channel SAN 

scalability, availability, manageability, and security. For mainframe environments, VSANs facilitate true hardware-

based separation of FICON and open systems. 

Each VSAN is a logically and functionally separate SAN with its own set of Fibre Channel fabric services. This 

partitioning of fabric services improves network stability considerably by containing fabric reconfiguration settings 

and error conditions within an individual VSAN. Strict traffic segregation provided by VSANs helps ensure that the 

control and data traffic of a given VSAN are confined within the VSAN

’s own domain, increasing SAN security, 

scalability, and resilience. VSANs also help reduce costs by facilitating the consolidation of isolated SAN islands 

into a common infrastructure without compromising availability, security, or scalability. Users can create SAN 

administrator roles that are limited in scope to certain VSANs. For example, a SAN administrator role can be set up 

to allow configuration of all platform-specific capabilities, and other roles can be set up to allow configuration and 

management within specific VSANs only. This approach improves the manageability of large SANs and reduces 

disruptions resulting from human errors by isolating the effect of a SAN administrator

’s action to a specific VSAN 

whose membership can be isolated based on the switch ports or World Wide Names (WWNs) of attached devices. 

VSANs are supported across FCIP links between SANs, extending VSANs to include devices at remote locations. 

The Cisco MDS 9000 Family also implements trunking for VSANs. Trunking allows Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) to 

carry traffic for multiple VSANs on the same physical link. F-port trunking allows multiple VSANs on a single uplink 

in N-port virtualization (NPV) mode. 

Data traffic can be transported between specific initiators and targets on different VSANs using inter-VSAN routing 

(IVR) without merging VSANs into a single logical fabric. Fibre Channel control traffic does not flow between 

VSANs, nor can initiators access any resources aside from the ones designated with IVR. Valuable resources such 

as tape libraries can be easily shared without compromise. IVR can also be used in conjunction with FCIP to create 

more efficient business-continuity and disaster-recovery solutions. 

Intelligent Fabric Applications 

Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS provides a solid foundation for delivery of network-based storage applications and 

services such as virtualization, snapshots, continuous data protection, data acceleration, data migration, and 

replication on Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family intelligent fabric applications use all 

Fibre Channel features and services offered by Cisco MDS 9000 NX-OS, simplifying security, diagnostics, and 

management. 

More information about Cisco MDS 9000 Family intelligent fabric applications is available at 

.