The Cisco® MDS 9506 Multilayer Director provides industry-leading availability, scalability, security, and management. The Cisco MDS 9506 (Figure 1) allows you to deploy high-performance storage-area networks (SANs) with lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). Layering a rich set of intelligent features onto a high-performance, protocol-independent switch fabric, the Cisco MDS 9506 addresses the stringent requirements of large data center storage environments: uncompromising high availability, security, scalability, ease of management, and transparent integration of new technologies. Compatible with first, second, and third generation Cisco MDS 9000 Family switching modules, the Cisco MDS 9506 provides advanced functionality and unparalleled investment protection, allowing the use of any Cisco MDS 9000 Family switching module in this compact system.
Figure 1. The Cisco MDS 9506 Multilayer Director
Features and Benefits
The Cisco MDS 9506 offers the following benefits:
• Scalability and Availability: The Cisco MDS 9506 combines nondisruptive software upgrades, stateful process restart/failover, and full redundancy of all major components for best-in-class availability. Supporting up to 192 Fibre Channel ports in a single chassis, up to 1152 Fibre Channel ports in a single rack, the Cisco MDS 9506 is designed to meet the requirements of large data center storage environments.
• Compact design: The Cisco MDS 9506 provides high port density in a small footprint, saving valuable data center floor space. The seven-rack-unit chassis allows up to six Cisco MDS 9506 multilayer directors in a standard rack, maximizing the number of available Fibre Channel ports.
• 1/2/4/8-Gbps and 10-Gbps Fibre Channel: Supports new 8-Gbps as well as existing 10-Gbps, 4-Gbps, and 2-Gbps MDS Fibre Channel switching modules.
• Flexibility and investment protection: Supports mix of mix of new, second, and first generation Cisco MDS 9000 Family modules providing forward and backward compatibility and unparalleled investment protection.
• TCO driven design: The Cisco MDS 9506 offers advanced management tools for overall lowest TCO. It includes VSAN technology for hardware-enforced, isolated environments within a single physical fabric for secure sharing of physical infrastructure, further decreasing TCO.
• Multiprotocol: The multilayer architecture of the Cisco MDS 9000 Family enables a consistent feature set over a protocol-independent switch fabric. The Cisco MDS 9506 transparently integrates Fibre Channel, IBM Fiber Connection (FICON), Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI), and Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) in one system.
• Intelligent network services: Provides integrated support for VSAN technology, access control lists (ACLs) for hardware-based intelligent frame processing, and advanced traffic-management features such as Fibre Channel Congestion Control (FCC) and fabric-wide quality of service (QoS) to enable migration from SAN islands to enterprise-wide storage networks.
• Integrated Cisco Storage Media Encryption (SME) as distributed fabric service: Supported on the Cisco MDS 18/4-Port Multiservice Module, Cisco SME encrypts data at rest on heterogeneous tape drives and virtual tape libraries (VTLs) in a SAN environment using secure IEEE standard Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit algorithms. Cisco MDS 18/4-Port Multiservice Module helps ensure ease of deployment, scalability, and high availability by using innovative technology to transparently offer Cisco SME capabilities to any device connected to the fabric without the need for reconfiguration or rewiring. Cisco SME provisioning is integrated into the Cisco Fabric Manager; no additional software is required. Cisco SME key management can be provided by either the Cisco Key Management Center (KMC) or with RSA Key Manager for the Datacenter from RSA, the Security Division of EMC.
• Open platform for intelligent storage applications: Provides the intelligent services necessary for hosting and/or accelerating storage applications such as network-hosted volume management, data migration and backup.
• Integrated hardware-based VSANs and Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR): Enables deployment of large-scale multisite and heterogeneous SAN topologies. Integration into port-level hardware allows any port within a system or fabric to be partitioned into any VSAN. Integrated hardware-based inter-VSAN routing provides line-rate routing between any ports within a system or fabric without the need for external routing appliances
• Advanced FICON services: Supports 1/2/4-Gbps FICON environments, including cascaded FICON fabrics, VSAN-enabled intermix of mainframe and open systems environments, and N_Port ID virtualization for mainframe Linux partitions. CUP (Control Unit Port) support enables in-band management of Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches from the mainframe management console.
• Comprehensive security framework: Supports RADIUS and TACACS+, Fibre Channel Security Protocol (FC-SP), Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP), Secure Shell (SSH) Protocol and Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3 (SNMPv3) implementing Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), VSANs, hardware-enforced zoning, ACLs, and per-VSAN role-based access control.
• Sophisticated diagnostics: Provides intelligent diagnostics, protocol decoding, and network analysis tools as well as integrated Call Home capability for added reliability, faster problem resolution, and reduced service costs.
• Unified SAN management: The Cisco MDS 9000 Family includes built-in storage network management with all features available through a command-line interface (CLI) or Cisco Fabric Manager, a centralized management tool that simplifies management of multiple switches and fabrics. Integration with third party storage management platforms allows seamless interaction with existing management tools.
• Cisco Trusted Security (CTS) Fibre Channel Link Encryption: Delivers transparent, hardware-based, line-rate encryption of Fibre Channel data between any Cisco MDS 9000 Family 8-Gbps modules.
High Availability
The Cisco MDS 9506 Multilayer Director was designed from the beginning for high availability. Beyond meeting the basic requirements of nondisruptive software upgrades and redundancy of all critical hardware components, the Cisco MDS 9506 software architecture offers an unparalleled level of availability. The Cisco MDS 9500 Series Supervisor Module has the unique ability to automatically restart failed processes, making it exceptionally robust. In the rare event that a Supervisor Module is reset, complete synchronization between the active and standby supervisor modules ensures stateful failover with no disruption to traffic.
High availability is implemented at the fabric level using robust and high-performance ISLs. PortChannel capability allows users to aggregate up to 16 physical links into one logical bundle. The bundle can consist of any speed-matched port in the chassis, ensuring that the bundle can remain active in the event of a port, ASIC, or module failure. The Cisco MDS 9506 takes high availability to a new level, ensuring ultrahigh-availability solutions that exceed the 99.999 percent uptime requirements of today's most demanding environments.
Scalable Expansion with Maximum Investment Protection
The Cisco MDS 9506 is designed to make optimal use of valuable data center floor space. It is just 12.25 inches tall (seven rack units), with single-side connection management for both interface and power terminations. This space-efficient design allows deployment of up to six Cisco MDS 9506 multilayer directors per standard 7-foot rack (42 rack unit), maximizing the number of available Fibre Channel ports per rack.
Using Cisco MDS 9000 Family Switching Modules, the Cisco MDS 9506 supports from 24 to 192 1/2/4/8-Gbps auto-sensing Fibre Channel ports, from 4 to 16 10-Gbps Fibre Channel ports, and from 4 to 32 1-Gbps Ethernet ports (user-configurable for iSCSI and FCIP) in a 6-slot modular chassis. The Cisco MDS 9506 provides up to 1152 Fibre Channel ports in a single rack.
The Cisco MDS 9506 provides a very high level of system commonality. All Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fibre Channel Switching Modules are compatible with each Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Director. Designed to grow with your storage environment, the Cisco MDS 9506 provides smooth migration, common sparing, and outstanding investment protection.
Virtual Machine Transparency
Server virtualization means that a SAN must concurrently support thousands of diverse, tiered applications, each with unique performance requirements. These applications and the Virtual Machines (VMs) they run on are not bounded by physical servers and network ports. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family provides deterministic hardware performance and a rich feature set that allows VMs to have the same SAN attributes as a physical server. On a per-VM basis, the MDS 9000 Family NX-OS offers VSANs, QoS policies, access control, performance monitoring, and data protection to promote the scalability and mobility of VMs.
Virtual SANs
Ideal for efficient, secure SAN consolidation, VSANs allow more efficient storage network utilization by creating hardware-based isolated environments with a single physical SAN fabric or switch. Each VSAN can be zoned as a typical SAN and maintains 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.
Integrated SAN Routing
In another step toward deploying efficient, cost-effective, consolidated storage networks, the Cisco MDS 9506 Multilayer Director supports IVR, the industry's first routing functionality for Fibre Channel. IVR allows selective transfer of data between specific initiators and targets on different VSANs while maintaining isolation of control traffic within each VSAN. With IVR, data can transit VSAN boundaries while maintaining control plane isolation, thereby maintaining fabric stability and availability. Integrated IVR eliminates the need for external routing appliances, greatly increasing routing scalability while delivering line-rate routing performance, simplifying management, and eliminating the challenges associated with maintaining separate systems. Integrated IVR means lower total cost of SAN ownership.
Multiprotocol Intelligence
As with all Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Directors, the MDS 9506 architecture enables multilayer and multiprotocol functionality, allowing it to transparently integrate multiple transport technologies for maximum flexibility. Beginning with Fibre Channel, FICON, iSCSI, and FCIP, the Cisco MDS 9506 is a robust multiprotocol platform designed for deployment of cost-optimized storage networks. Users can implement up to 10-Gbps Fibre Channel or FICON for high-performance applications, iSCSI over Ethernet for cost-effective connectivity to shared storage pools, and FCIP for connectivity between data centers.
Cisco Storage Media Encryption
The services provided by Cisco Storage Media Encryption (SME) are mandatory in today's storage area networks as a result of enactment of recent regulations that require companies to store and protect data at rest for a specified number of years while publicly disclosing security breaches. Cisco SME enables data on tapes and VTLs to be compressed, encrypted, and authenticated for centralized security management and data management and recovery. Cisco SME is supported on the Cisco MDS 18/4-Port Multiservice Module. Cisco SME services employ clustering technology to create a highly available solution. The cryptographic cluster formed enhances reliability and availability, provides automated load balancing and failover capabilities, and simplifies provisioning as a single SAN fabric service rather than as individual switches or modules. The Cisco Key Management Center (KMC) provides comprehensive key management for Cisco SME, with support for single- and multiple-site deployments. Cisco KMC provides essential features such as key archival, secure export and import and translation for distribution, and key shredding. Cisco SME can also be combined with RSA Key Manager for the Datacenter from RSA, the Security Division of EMC, to provide a highly capable offering for securing data on tape.
Cisco Data Mobility Manager
The Cisco Data Mobility Manager (DMM) is a fabric-based data migration solution that transfers block data nondisruptively across heterogeneous storage volumes and across distances, whether the host is online or offline. This data-center class solution helps minimize the challenges experienced in migrating data, such as downtime, the need to add data migration software to servers, and the potential for data loss and corruption. Enabling the Cisco DMM feature on the Cisco MDS 9000 Family 32-Port Storage Services Module or the Cisco MDS 9000 Family 18/4-Port Multiservice Module located anywhere in the SAN allows data migration to be configured without host agents, without rewiring, with minimal effect on performance, and without downtime.
Open Platform for Intelligent Storage Applications
The Cisco MDS 9506 multilayer director provides an open platform that delivers the intelligence and advanced features required to make multilayer intelligent SANs a reality, including hardware-enabled innovations to host or accelerate applications for data migration, data replication, serverless backup, network-hosted volume management and more. Hosting and/or accelerating these applications in the network can dramatically improve scalability, availability, security and manageability of the storage environment-resulting in increased utility and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
Integrated Mainframe Support
The Cisco MDS 9506 multilayer director is mainframe-ready with full support for IBM System z FICON and Linux environments. Qualified by IBM for attachment to all FICON-enabled devices in an IBM System z operating environment, the Cisco MDS 9506 multilayer director supports transport of the FICON protocol in both cascaded and non-cascaded fabrics, as well as intermix of FICON and open systems Fibre Channel Protocol traffic on the same switch. Virtual SANs simplify intermix of SAN resources between z/OS, mainframe Linux, and open systems environments, allowing for increased SAN utilization and simplified SAN management. VSAN-based intermix mode eliminates the uncertainty and instability often associated with zoning-based intermix techniques. VSANs also eliminate the possibility of a misconfiguration or component failure in one VSAN affecting operation in other VSANs. VSAN-based management access control simplifies partitioning of SAN management responsibilities between mainframe and open systems environments, enhancing security. FICON VSANs can be managed using the integrated Cisco Fabric Manager; Cisco CLI; or IBM CUP-enabled management tools, including SA/390, Resource Measurement Facility (RMF), or Dynamic Channel Path Management (DCM).
Advanced Traffic Management
Advanced traffic management capabilities integrated into the Cisco MDS 9506 Multilayer Director simplify deployment and optimization of large-scale fabrics.
• Virtual output queuing: Helps ensure line-rate performance on each port, independent of traffic pattern, by eliminating head-of-line blocking.
• Up to 4095 buffer-to-buffer credits: Can be assigned to an individual port for optimal bandwidth utilization across distance.
• PortChannels: Allow users to aggregate up to 16 physical ISLs into a single logical bundle, providing optimized bandwidth utilization across all links. The bundle can consist of any speed-matched ports from any module in the chassis, ensuring that the bundle can remain active even in the event of a module failure.
• FSPF-based multipathing: Provides the intelligence to load balance across up to 16 equal cost paths and, in the event of a switch failure, dynamically reroute traffic.
• QoS: Can be used to manage bandwidth and control latency to prioritize critical traffic.
• Fibre Channel Congestion Control (FCC): An end-to-end feedback-based congestion control mechanism that augments the Fibre Channel buffer-to-buffer credit mechanism to provide enhanced traffic management.
• Port Bandwidth Reservation: Allows users to define dedicated bandwidth on a per port basis.
Advanced Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Tools
Management of large-scale storage networks requires proactive diagnostics, tools to verify connectivity and route latency, and mechanisms for capturing and analyzing traffic. The Cisco MDS 9506 integrates advanced analysis and debug tools. Power-on self test (POST) and online diagnostics provide proactive health monitoring. The Cisco MDS 9506 provides the integrated functionality required to implement diagnostic capabilities such as Fibre Channel Traceroute for detailing the exact path and timing of flows, and Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN) and Remote Switched Port Analyzer (RSPAN) to intelligently capture network traffic. After traffic has been captured, it can then be analyzed with the Cisco Fabric Analyzer, an embedded Fibre Channel analyzer. Comprehensive port-based and flow-based statistics enable sophisticated performance analysis and service-level agreement (SLA) accounting. With the Cisco MDS 9506, Cisco delivers a comprehensive toolset for troubleshooting and analyzing storage networks.
Comprehensive Solution for Robust Security
Addressing the need for failproof security in storage networks, the Cisco MDS 9506 offers an extensive security framework to protect highly sensitive data crossing today's enterprise networks. The Cisco Fibre Channel switching modules employ intelligent packet inspection at the port level, including the application of ACLs for hardware enforcement of zones, VSANs, and advanced Port Security features. Extended zoning capabilities are enabled to ensure that logical unit numbers (LUNs) are accessible only by specific hosts (LUN zoning), to limit SCSI read command for a certain zone (read-only zoning), and to restrict broadcasts to only the selected zones (broadcast zones). VSANs are used to achieve higher security and greater stability by providing complete isolation among devices that are connected to the same physical SAN. IVR enables controlled sharing of resources between VSANs. In addition, Fibre Channel Security Protocol (FC-SP) provides switch-switch and host-switch Diffie-Hellman Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (DH-CHAP) authentication supporting RADIUS or TACACS+, to help ensure that only authorized devices access protected storage networks. CTS Fibre Channel Link Encryption, available on the Cisco MDS 9000 Family 8-Gbps modules, allows you to transparently encrypt ISLs, providing an additional layer of protection for traffic within and between data centers.
Ease of Management
To meet the needs of all users, the Cisco MDS 9506 provides three principal modes of management: Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI, Cisco Fabric Manager, and integration with third-party storage management tools.
The Cisco MDS 9506 presents the user with a consistent, logical CLI. Adhering to the syntax of the widely known Cisco IOS® Software CLI, the Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI is easy to learn and delivers broad management capabilities. This extremely efficient and direct interface provides optimal functionality to administrators in enterprise environments.
Cisco Fabric Manager is a responsive, easy-to-use Java application that simplifies management across multiple switches and fabrics. Cisco Fabric Manager helps administrators to perform vital tasks such as topology discovery, fabric configuration and verification, provisioning, monitoring, and fault resolution. All functions are available through a secure interface, which facilitates remote management from any location.
Cisco Fabric Manager can be used independently or in conjunction with third-party management applications. Cisco provides an extensive API for integration with third-party and user-developed management tools.
Product Specifications
Table 1 lists the product specifications for the Cisco MDS 9506 Multilayer Director.
• Input: 100-240V AC nominal (±10% for full range); 12A maximum; 50-60 Hz nominal (±3 Hz for full range)
• Output: 1050W (100V AC at 12A); 1900W (200V AC at 12A)
• MDS 9506 Typical Power Consumption: 395W AC
• Airflow
• 300 linear feet per minute (lfm) through system fan assembly
• Cisco recommends that you maintain a minimum air space of 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) between walls and the chassis air vents and a minimum horizontal separation of 6 inches (15.2 cm) between two chassis to prevent overheating.
Environmental
• Temperature, ambient operating: 32 to 104°F (0 to 40°C)
• Temperature, ambient non-operating and storage: -40 to 167°F (-40 to 75°C)
• Relative humidity, ambient (non-condensing) operating: 10 to 90%
• Relative humidity, ambient (non-condensing) non-operating and storage: 10 to 95%
• Altitude, operating: -197 to 6500 feet (-60 to 2000m)
Physical dimensions
• Dimensions (H x W x D)
• 12.25 x 17.37 x 21.75 in (31.1 x 44.1 x 55.25 cm) -7 RU
• Chassis depth including cable guide is 26.75 in. (67.9 cm). All units rack mountable in standard 19 inch EIA rack
Weight
• Chassis (includes fan tray): 46 lb (20.9 kg)
• Chassis fully configured with two supervisor/fabric modules, four switching modules, and two 1900W power supplies: 124 lb (56 kg)
