Cisco MDS 9506 Specification Sheet page 3

and enterprise-class storage and
servers. Port bandwidth reservation
enables 1, 2 or 4 Gbps switching band-
width to be flexibly dedicated to ports
to meet a wide range of application
requirements. This module is designed
to provide a low-cost means of attach-
ing lower performance servers and
storage subsystems to the high-
performance crossbar switch fabric
without requiring ISLs.
4-port switching module: Configuring the
switch for metro business continuity
The 4-port 10 Gbps Fibre Channel
switching module is designed to
deliver high bandwidth links for metro
business continuity solutions. The mod-
ule uses hot-swappable X2 form-factor
pluggable, SC type transceivers. The
module is well suited for ISL links
between data centers across metro
optical networks.
A switch designed for high availability
The Cisco MDS 9506 for IBM System
Storage combines support for non-
disruptive software upgrades, stateful
process restart/failover and redundancy
of active hardware components to sup-
port director-class availability. The
Supervisor-2 Module has the ability to
automatically restart failed processes
and complete synchronization between
the active and standby Supervisor
Modules to help support stateful failover
without disruption to traffic.
Simplified storage network management
The Cisco MDS 9506 supports 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
9506 presents the user with a consis-
tent, logical CLI. Adhering to the syntax
of the widely known Cisco IOS® CLI,
the Cisco MDS 9000 Family CLI has
broad functionality.
Multiprotocol support and traffic
management features
IP and Multiprotocol Storage Services
Module features offer Gigabit Ethernet
ports for iSCSI or FCIP connectivity,
software configurable on a port-by-port
basis. The IP Storage Services
Module feature provides eight iSCSI
ports. Multiprotocol Services
Module feature offers two Gigabit
Ethernet iSCSI ports and fourteen
2 Gbps Fibre Channel ports. The SAN
Extension over IP Package for IP
Services Modules and Multiprotocol
Services Module features add Fibre
Channel over IP 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 9506 for
IBM System Storage is designed to
provide extensive security measures at
possible points of attack to help pre-
vent unauthorized management access
and snooping.