Storage Networking

Products and Solutions		Benefits		Architecture

Storage Networking Benefits

Ideal Features for Competitive Environments

Storage costs are growing faster than server costs. Businesses need more efficient, cost-effective, and responsive storage area networks (SANs), without increasing overall power consumption. Also, in today's environments that must comply with government regulations for data recovery, 24-hour access to critical information is imperative.

Cisco SANs provide:

• Multiprotocol storage networking: Achieve lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and greater agility by integrating disparate protocols such as FC, FICON, FCoE, iSCSI, and FCIP
• Unified OS and management tools: Reduce operating expenses and provide operational simplicity, seamless interoperability, and consistent features
• Enterprise-class storage connectivity: Support significantly higher virtualized workloads, to increase availability, scalability, and performance
• Services-oriented SANs: Extend any network service to any device, regardless of protocol, speed, vendor, or location

Cisco MDS 9000: Flexible, Agile, Cost-Effectivee

With Cisco MDS 9000 Switches, you can optimize physical resources, reduce operating costs such as energy use, and decrease capital expenditures to achieve lower TCO.

With industry-leading features and advanced capabilities, Cisco MDS 9000 Switches continue to be the leading platform for hosting intelligent multilayer services that fill business needs such as:

• SAN consolidation
• Storage encryption
• Disaster recovery
• Data mobility
• SAN security
• Replication

The MDS 9000 product family also facilitates server storage and fabric virtualization to provide an end-to-end virtualization solution for the data center.

SANs are central to the Cisco Data Center Business Advantage architecture. They provide a networking platform that helps IT departments achieve lower total cost of ownership, enhanced resiliency, and greater agility.

Feature	Cisco MDS 9148	Other Vendors' Switches	Benefits of Cisco Switches
Virtual Fabric Support	No additional cost	Limited; not available in entry-level switches	Cost savings; fewer SAN switches needed
Switch-to-Switch Connections and SAN Extension	No additional cost	Fee for optional license	Scalability and business continuity without additional cost No additional charge to connect two switches together or to extend the SAN
High Availability of Link	No additional cost	Fee for optional license	Reduced disruptions; included without additional cost on Cisco switches
Redundant Power Supplies	No additional cost	Not available in entry-level switches	Highly available; Cisco is the only vendor not to sacrifice high availability
Fabric Mangement and Monitoring	No additional cost	Fee for optional license	Fabric-view access to manage and monitor the network

Resources

White Papers

• Advanced FICON Features for Mainframe Environments
• Compare Cisco MDS Features with Competing Products
• Energy-Efficient SANs
• Innovation and Leadership
• Optimized Storage Networking for Virtual Machines
• Virtual SAN Advantages