The Cisco^® MDS 9250i Multiservice Fabric Switch (Figure 1), the next generation of the highly flexible, industry-leading, proven Cisco MDS 9200 Series Multiservice Switches, is an optimized platform for deploying high-performance SAN extension solutions, distributed intelligent fabric services, and cost-effective multiprotocol connectivity for both open systems and mainframe environments. With a compact form factor and advanced capabilities normally available only on director-class switches, the Cisco MDS 9250i is an ideal solution for departmental and remote branch-office SANs as well as in large-scale SANs in conjunction with the Cisco MDS 9710 Multilayer Director.

The Cisco MDS 9250i offers up to forty 16-Gbps Fibre Channel ports, two 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet IP storage services ports, and eight 10 Gigabit Ethernet Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) ports in a fixed Two-Rack-Unit (2RU) form factor. The Cisco MDS 9250i connects to existing native Fibre Channel networks, protecting current investments in storage networks. The Cisco SAN Extension over IP application package license is enabled as standard on the two fixed 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet IP storage services ports, enabling features such as Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) and compression on the switch without the need for additional licenses. Also, using the eight 10 Gigabit Ethernet FCoE ports, the Cisco MDS 9250i platform attaches to directly connected FCoE and Fibre Channel storage devices and supports multitiered unified network fabric connectivity directly over FCoE.

Main features and benefits

The Cisco MDS 9250i provides unique Multiservice and multiprotocol functions in a compact 2RU form factor:

• SAN consolidation with integrated multiprotocol support: The Cisco MDS 9250i is available in a base configuration of 20 ports of 16-Gbps Fibre Channel for high-performance SAN connectivity, 2 ports of 1/10-Gigabit Ethernet for FCIP and Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) storage services, and 8 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet for FCoE connectivity.
• High-density Fibre Channel switch with 16-Gbps connectivity: The Cisco MDS 9250i scales up to 40 ports of 16-Gbps Fibre Channel in a fixed configuration switch. The base configuration comes with 20 ports of 16-Gbps Fibre Channel enabled for high-performance SAN connectivity, and it can be upgraded onsite to enable additional 20 ports of 16-Gbps Fibre Channel by adding the Cisco MDS 9250i On-Demand Port Activation license. Additionally, the Cisco MDS 9250i cost-effectively scales up for IBM Fibre Connection (FICON) mainframe environments.
• Intelligent application services engine: The Cisco MDS 9250i includes as standard a single application services engine that enables the included Cisco SAN Extension over IP software solution package to run on the two fixed 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet storage services ports. The Cisco SAN Extension over IP package provides an integrated, cost-effective, and reliable business-continuance solution that uses IP infrastructure by offering FCIP for remote SAN extension, along with a variety of advanced features to optimize the performance and manageability of FCIP links.
• Hardware-based virtual fabric isolation with Virtual SANs (VSANs) and Fibre Channel routing with Inter-VSAN Routing (IVR): VSANs and IVR enable deployment of large-scale multisite and heterogeneous SAN topologies. Integration into port-level hardware allows any port in a system or in a fabric to be partitioned into any VSAN. Included in the optional Cisco MDS 9000 Enterprise advanced software package, IVR provides line-rate routing between any of the ports in a system or in a fabric without the need for external routing appliances.