IBM MDS 9509 manual Multiservice support and traffic management features

physical SAN fabric or switch. Each VSAN can be zoned as a typical SAN, maintaining its own fabric services for added scalability and resilience. VSANs allow the cost of SAN infrastructure to be shared among more users, while ensuring absolute segregation of traffic and retaining independent control of configuration on a VSAN-by-VSAN basis. Through unique virtualization fea- tures, VSAN benefits can be extended to virtualized servers, providing the foundation for an end-to-end virtualized data center. VSANs also greatly reduce the probability that a misconfiguration or component failure in one FSAN will affect other VSANs. VSAN-based man- agement access controls enhance security by simplifying partitioning of SAN management responsibilities between mainframe and open systems environments.

Each 8 Gbps switching module sup- ports Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR) on every Fibre Channel port. IVR allows selective transfer of data traffic between specific initiators and targets of different VSANs while maintaining isolation of control traffic within each VSAN, thereby main- taining fabric stability and availability.

Simplified storage network management

The Cisco MDS 9509 provides three principal modes of management: the Cisco MDS 9000 family command-line interface (CLI), Cisco Fabric Manager and integration with third-party storage management tools. The Cisco MDS 9509 presents the user with a consis- tent, logical CLI. Adhering to the syntax of the widely known Cisco IOS CLI, the Cisco MDS 9000 for IBM System Storage family CLI has broad functionality.

Multiservice support and traffic-

management features

IP and Multiservice 18/4 Module fea- tures offer Gigabit Ethernet ports for iSCSI or FCIP connectivity, software configurable on a port-by-port basis:

●The IP Storage Service Module fea-

ture provides eight iSCSI ports.

●The Multiservice 18/4 Module offers

four Gigabit Ethernet iSCSI ports

and 18 4-Gbps Fibre Channel

ports.

●The SAN Extension over IP Package

for IP Services and Multiservice 18/4 Module features add FCIP support. SAN Extension over IP Package helps improve performance with FCIP Compression, Write Acceleration and Tape Acceleration and helps improve security with Inter-VSAN Routing for FCIP.

Security for large enterprise SANs

Because storage networks require security, the Cisco MDS 9509 for

IBM System Storage provides extensive security measures at possible points of attack to help prevent unauthorized access and snooping.

Additionally, data-plane traffic is secured through VSANs, which segre- gate traffic between multiple virtual fab- rics within the single physical fabric infrastructure, and through hardware- enforced zoning, which further segre- gates traffic within each VSAN.

Advanced security and management

The Enterprise Package feature pro- vides advanced security and manage- ment capabilities. The package helps