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Cisco MDS 9500 Series Hardware Installation Guide
OL-17467-02
Chapter 1 Product Overview
Services Modules
14/2-Port Multiprotocol Services Module
The 14/2-port Multiprotocol Services (MPS-14/2) module provides 14 2-Gbps Fibre Channel
autosensing ports and two 1-Gigabit Ethernet ports for iSCSI and FCIP over Gigabit Ethernet. The
MPS-14/2 module supports the intelligent features available on other modules, including VSANs,
security, and traffic management.
The 14 2-Gbps autosensing Fibre Channel ports (labeled 1 through 14) are best used for applications
requiring high bandwidth; for example, Inter-Switch Link (ISL) connections between switches and
high-performance host or storage controllers. Each Fibre Channel port supports a sustained data rate of
up to 2 Gbps in each direction.
The Cisco 9513 supports up to seven MPS-14/2 modules. The Cisco MDS 9509 supports up to seven
MPS-14/2 modules. The Cisco MDS 9506 supports up to four MPS-14/2 modules. The two Gigabit
Ethernet ports (labeled 1 and 2) provide 1-Gbps throughput for IP services, including iSCSI and FCIP
over Gigabit Ethernet. The MPS-14/2 also supports hardware-based encryption and compression for
these Gigabit Ethernet ports. This hardware-based encryption handles the computationally intensive
IPsec feature for IP services.
The MPS-14/2 modules support FCIP compression to maximize the effective WAN bandwidth of SAN
extension solutions. It achieves up to a 30 to 1 compression ratio, with typical ratios of 2 to 1 over a wide
variety of data sources. With the addition of hardware-based compression, the MPS-14/2 module is able
to provide optimal levels of compressed throughput for implementations across low-bandwidth to
high-bandwidth links.
The Gigabit Ethernet ports on the MPS-14/2 module support the iSCSI protocol, the FCIP protocol, or
both protocols simultaneously. For information about configuring the ports, see the Cisco MDS 9000
Family CLI Configuration Guide or the Cisco MDS Family Fabric Manager Configuration Guide.
The Fibre Channel port interfaces support hot-swappable Fibre Channel SFP transceivers, which can be
short wavelength (SWL) for connectivity up to 1640 feet (500 meters), or long wavelength (LWL) for
connectivity up to 6.2 miles (10 km). All Fibre Channel interfaces are autosensing 1-Gbps or 2-Gbps
compatible. The Fibre Channel interfaces also support coarse wavelength-division multiplexing
(CWDM) SFP transceivers, which can be used for extended long wavelength (ELWL) transmission or
for CWDM. See the “Supported Transceivers” section on page 1-55.
Note Cisco MDS 9500 Series switches running Cisco MDS SAN-OS Release 2.x, 3.x, or NX-OS Release
4.1(1b) support the MPS-14/2 module.