Cisco redefines storage networking with built-in telemetry and cost effective 32Gbps storage switch

SAN JOSE, Calif.—October 26, 2017 –With stored data serving as the brain trust of global organizations, advanced storage area networks (SANs) are vital to corporate digital business. Cisco today announced technology innovations for next-generation storage networking that will help customers to better analyze SAN operational performance and move to cost-effective 32Gbps solutions that grow as digital business expands.

With this announcement, Cisco® delivers the Cisco MDS 9132T cost-effective 32Gbps storage fabric switch, which offers built-in telemetry for flash memory environments, built-in telemetry sensors for streaming on the Cisco MDS 9700 32G Module, integration with Virtual Instruments for deep Fibre Channel (FC) SAN performance monitoring, and storage networking support for Cisco’s data center switch, the Cisco Nexus® 9300-FX.

“Cisco now provides unmatched storage networking telemetry and performance options while also preserving customer technology investments,” said Thomas Scheibe, senior director of product management, Cisco Data Center Solutions. “With greater streaming telemetry options on a variety of platforms, a cost effective and flexible SAN switch with built-in telemetry for flash memory, and SAN Fibre Channel support for Cisco Nexus data center switches, customers can elevate corporate storage environments with a full complement of SAN technologies at their disposal.”

Today’s announcements include:

Cisco MDS 9132T Fibre Channel Switch

• The new Cisco MDS 9132T 32 Port 32-Gbps Fibre Channel Switch enables customers to cost effectively scale from 8 to 32 ports as demand grows. Its versatile semi-modular design caters to entry-level, departmental and enterprise-class SANs, and enables customers to grow from 8 to 16 ports initially on the base, with further expansion to 32 ports using the 16-port expansion module. It supports flash memory environments (flash arrays for FCP workloads now and FC-NVMe in the near future), offering built-in telemetry diagnostics to proactively identify and correct conditions that affect all-flash array performance. The product offers director-level capabilities in a small, cost effective and expandable footprint: 32 auto-sensing line-rate 32-Gbps Fibre Channel ports in a compact 1-rack-unit (1RU) form factor; the industry’s largest B2B credits per port (8270) to enable long distance 32G FC connectivity; and optimal resiliency, with field-swappable port expansion modules.

SAN Telemetry Streaming on Cisco MDS 9700 32G Module

• Cisco SAN Telemetry Streaming provides advanced telemetry and diagnostics data, which are crucial to troubleshooting and providing deep insight into SAN fabrics. The Cisco MDS 9700 32G Module offers built-in sensors to provide pervasive data plane visibility for troubleshooting, infrastructure capacity planning, and optimization of SAN fabrics. Data is streamed real time using a high-performance, open-source universal RPC framework. The 32GB line card with built-in telemetry can be placed anywhere in the I/O path for seamless integration and ease of operation, and streamed data can be sent to any analytics application.

Improved Data Center Operations with Cisco and Virtual Instruments Technology Integration

• Cisco now offers direct technology integration with Virtual Instruments (VI), ideal for customers in high performance industries such as finance, enterprises or large scale service providers. VI’s VirtualWisdom application monitors and analyzes the performance and utilization of FC SAN infrastructure. Cisco FC SAN customers can now choose to deploy VirtualWisdom non-intrusively, eliminating the need for physical TAP and hardware probes. Data will be streamed real-time from the Cisco MDS 9700 32G Module to the VirtualWisdom Platform Appliance, uniting Virtual Instruments analytics capabilities with Cisco’s leading SAN infrastructure.

Fibre Channel N-Port Virtualization on Cisco Nexus 9300-FX DC Switch

• Based on Cisco Cloud Scale technology, the Cisco Nexus 9300-FX platforms are the next generation of fixed Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches, and offer support for 16G Fibre Channel NPV now and 32G FC in the future. This capability builds on Cisco’s commitment to Cisco Nexus customers who choose to consolidate their LAN and SAN infrastructure at the data center access layer by providing an easy migration path from the earlier generation of Cisco Nexus 5000, Cisco Nexus 5600, and Cisco Nexus 6000 to the latest generation of Cisco Nexus 9300-FX switches.

Supporting Quotes

“The MDS 9132T is a cost optimized, low power entry-level SAN switch with all the bells and whistles of an enterprise class switch, and has helped us achieve lower OPEX while providing enhanced workload visibility from the fabric itself," said Alessandro Spigaroli, Head of Open Systems, Architecture & Innovation, Cedacri Group. “The 32Gbps SAN switch ensures that our investments in SAN switches are future proofed, and we can fully realize the potential of our all flash array deployments.”

“Both Cisco and Virtual Instruments play important roles in the performance, reliability and scalability of the Plex Manufacturing Cloud, so the integration of Cisco SAN Telemetry Streaming with the VirtualWisdom performance management platform has huge value for PLEX,” said Joe Hollewa, Senior Manager of Cloud Operations at PLEX. “This integration will dramatically increase the breadth of visibility we have into our SAN, while reducing both the complexity and cost of traditional hardware-based instrumentation.”