Cisco Launches New MDS Storage Products

Cisco (CSCO) announced new MDS storage networking solutions for storage area networks, to help customers address rising cloud and big data requirements.

9710 Multilayer Director

Cisco says that at 24 terabits per second of total switching capacity, the new Cisco 9710 Multilayer Director delivers more bandwidth than any storage director in the industry. Powering both SAN and LAN networking operations it will support high-density Fibre Channel and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). The new model builds on the MDS heritage of nonstop operations, including software upgrades, by providing the highest fault-tolerant capabilities with fully redundant (N+1) fans, switching fabrics, and power-supplies or grid redundancy (N:N). The new MDS 9710 Multilayer Director supports up to 384 line-rate 16 GB Fibre Channel ports or FCoE in a single 14 RU chassis.

"As the leading IT service provider in Norway, we look to Cisco as a key technology partner to support us in the process of consolidating and upgrading data centers. We require storage networks to support the next generation services and level of availability our customers demand," said Jo Marius Pedersen, SAN specialist, EVRY.  "The converged management, predictable high performance, flexibility and reliability of the 16 GB optimized Cisco MDS Multilayer 9710 has through thorough testing shown unprecedented results. The changing technology landscape, with its exponential data growth and increasing pressure to reduce cost and complexity, forces us to constantly balance innovative and known solutions. We can definitely recommend businesses with similar challenges to evaluate the innovative MDS platform."

9250i Multiservice Fabric Switch

The Cisco MDS 9250i Multiservice Fabric Switch delivers storage services, including Cisco I/O accelerator and Data Mobility Manager, which improve SAN efficiency by performing important storage services centrally in the fabric. This architecture reduces the time and resources required to perform common storage management functions and simplifies and accelerates data protection for regulatory compliance. It contains up to 40 line-rate ports of 16 GB FC/FICON, 8 ports of 10 GbE FCoE, and 2 ports of 1/10GbE FCIP/iSCSI, while delivering a rich set of storage services via licensing.

"Today's announcement cements Cisco's technology leadership in the storage director market," said David Yen, senior vice president, Data Center Group, Cisco. "Cisco continues to deliver the greatest depth and breadth for an end-to-end data center unified fabric. Together with our ecosystem of partners, we are reshaping the data center into an IT linchpin that transforms business continuity and operations for customers, one that is critical to today's competitive business environments."