Cisco Cisco MDS 9500 Series Supervisor-2 Module White Paper
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White Paper
Advanced SAN Design Using
Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Directors
Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Directors
Cisco Systems
®
released the first-generation Cisco
®
MDS 9000 Family high-density, multiprotocol, intelligent storage area
network (SAN) switches in December 2002. The switches offered intelligent features and functionality, with port densities
higher than those previously existing in the Fibre Channel switching marketplace.
The second-generation Cisco MDS 9000 Family linecards, supervisors, and chassis add additional intelligence to the SAN switching fabric, more
than doubling the port densities offered by other SAN switches, while preserving investment protection through compatibility with existing chassis,
linecards, and supervisors.
This white paper provides technical guidance for the factors to consider when designing a SAN.
AUDIENCE
Escalating storage requirements, rising management costs, the requirement to share information, and increasing levels of underutilized disk storage
resources are encouraging the consolidation of storage resources and the migration from direct-attached storage (DAS) to SANs. SANs provide the
basis for managing increased storage costs by efficiently pooling and scaling storage resources, enabling:
•
Efficient utilization of storage resources
•
Multiple system access to multiple storage devices, regardless of location
•
Consolidation of multiple low-end storage systems into centralized, high-end systems
•
Reduced administrative overhead with centralized storage management
The aim of this white paper is to provide SAN architects and storage administrators with the background knowledge to use technical features and
innovations within Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches to decrease the overall cost and complexity of SAN deployments while providing high levels
of availability and manageability.
SAN DESIGN
SAN design doesn’t have to be rocket science. Modern SAN design is about deploying ports and switches in a configuration that provides flexibility
and scalability. It is also about making sure the network design and topology look as clean and functional one, two, or five years later as the day they
were first deployed.
Problems of Early SAN Designs
The first SAN deployments hardly qualified as networks. Built using fixed-configuration 8-port or 16-port switches, they offered limited port counts,
no fault isolation or fabric segmentation functionality, limited switch-to-switch connectivity with minimal traffic load-balancing, and no traffic
management capabilities. Management tools focused on element management rather than network management.
Fibre Channel topologies have evolved a long way from the early SAN days. SANs started as simple single-switch topologies to provide additional
connectivity to storage devices. Storage vendors bundled small Fibre Channel switches with their storage arrays to improve bandwidth, I/Os per
second (IOPS), and array connectivity fan-out capabilities.