Cisco MDS 9148T 32-Gbps 48-Port Fibre Channel Switch Data Sheet

Product overview

The next-generation Cisco^® MDS 9148T 32-Gbps 48-Port Fibre Channel Switch (Figure 1) provides high-speed Fibre Channel connectivity for All-Flash arrays. This switch offers state-of-the-art analytics and telemetry capability built into its next-generation Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) platform. This switch allows seamless transition to Fibre Channel Non-Volatile Memory Express (FC-NVMe) workloads whenever available without any hardware upgrade in the SAN. It empowers small, midsize, and large enterprises that are rapidly deploying cloud-scale applications using extremely dense virtualized servers, providing the benefits of greater bandwidth, scale, and consolidation. Some of the main benefits for a small-scale Storage Area Network (SAN) are automatic zoning, nonblocking forwarding, and smaller port groups of 16 ports. Benefits for a mid- to large-size SAN include higher scale for Fibre Channel control-plane functions, virtual SANs, Fabric Login (FLOGI), device alias and name server scale, 48 ports of 32-Gbps non-oversubscribed line-rate ports, bidirectional airflow, and a fixed-form FC-NVMe-ready SAN switch with enhanced Buffer-to-Buffer (B2B) credits connecting both storage and host ports and Fibre Channel link encryption. Large-scale SAN architectures built with SAN core directors can expand 32-Gbps connectivity to the server rack using these switches in either switch mode or Network Port Virtualization (NPV) mode. Additionally, the switch supports enhanced diagnostic features such as Inter-Switch Link (ISL) and

Host-Bus-Adapter (HBA) diagnostics, read diagnostic parameter, link cable beacon,¹ and advanced reliability features such as Forward Error Correction (FEC) with HBA ports.

Cisco MDS 9148T 32-Gbps 48-Port fibre channel switch

Main features

The main features of the Cisco MDS 9148T 32-Gbps 48-Port Fibre Channel Switch include:

●     High performance: MDS 9148T architecture, with centralized nonblocking arbitration, provides consistent 32-Gbps low-latency performance across all traffic conditions for every Fibre Channel port on the switch.

●     Fully integrated SAN analytics: This feature-rich switch also offers state-of-the-art SAN analytics and telemetry capabilities that have been built into this next-generation hardware platform. This new state-of-art technology couples the next-generation port ASIC with a fully dedicated Network Processing Unit designed to complete analytics calculations in real time on the 32-Gbps line card. The telemetry data extracted from the inspection of the frame headers are calculated on board (within the switch) and, using an industry-leading open format, can be streamed to any analytics-visualization platform.

●     Capital Expenditures (CapEx) savings: The 32-Gbps ports allow users to deploy them with existing 16- or 8-Gbps transceivers provide investment protection with an option to upgrade to 32-Gbps transceivers and adapters whenever needed.

●     High availability: MDS 9148T switches is designed to provide 99.999% availability. It provides such outstanding availability and reliability by providing redundancy on all major components, such as the power supply and cooling subsystems. Dual power supplies also facilitate redundant power grids. In addition, port-channel link members can be striped across the three 16-port port groups, thus providing additional high availability.

●     Reliability: As part of the standard 32-Gbps Fibre Channel specification, Cisco provides FEC between switch ports and HBA ports on all 32-Gbps Fibre Channel fixed switches. This feature helps ensure any error introduced in flight gets corrected before it reaches the device side. In addition, Cisco extends Buffer-to-Buffer State Change Notification (BBSCN) and buffer-to-buffer credit recovery, which is supported on all Cisco switches between ISL ports, to the fabric ports attached to any end device. Over time, the corruption of receiver-ready messages, known as R_RDY primitives, can lead to a loss of credits, which can eventually cause a link to stop transmitting in one direction. Buffer-to-buffer credit recovery provides for two attached ports to detect and correct this situation.

●     Growth in small increments: The MDS 9148T Fibre Channel switch provides an option to deploy as few as twenty-four 32-Gbps Fibre Channel ports in the entry-level variant, which can grow in increments of 8 ports to up to 48 ports. This setup allows four possible configurations of 24, 32, 40, and 48 ports.

●     Next-generation ASIC: The MDS 9148T Fibre Channel switch is powered by the same high-performance 32-Gbps Cisco ASIC that powers the Cisco MDS 32-Gbps Fibre Channel product portfolio.

●     Higher scalability: Increased fabric scalability provides more flexibility for a variety of SAN architectures.

●     Telemetry: Fibre Channel and Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) headers can be inspected without the need for any external taps or appliances. The resulting metrics can be analyzed on the switch and also exported using a dedicated 1- or 10-Gbps Small Form-Factor Pluggable Plus (SFP+) port for telemetry and analytics purposes#.

●     Intelligent services: Auto-zone, Smart Zoning, slow-drain detection and isolation, Virtual SAN (VSAN) and Inter-VSAN routing (IVR), and fabricwide Quality of Service (QoS) enable migration from SAN islands to enterprise.wide storage networks. Traffic encryption is optionally available to meet stringent security requirements.

●     Sophisticated diagnostics: The MDS 9148T provides intelligent diagnostics tools such as ISL diagnostics, HBA diagnostics, read diagnostic parameters, Switched Port Analyzer (SPAN), Integrated Cisco Call Home capability, and an Online Health Management System for greater reliability, faster problem resolution, and reduced service costs.

●     Virtual-machine awareness: The MDS 9148T provides visibility into all virtual machines that are accessing the storage LUNs in the fabric. This feature is available through HBAs capable of priority tagging the Virtual Machine Identifier (VMID) on every Fibre Channel frame. Virtual-machine awareness can be extended to intelligent fabric services such as analytics1 to visualize performance of every flow originating from each virtual machine in the fabric.

●     Programmable fabric: The MDS 9148T provides powerful Representational State Transfer (REST) and Cisco NX-API capabilities to enable flexible and rapid programming of utilities for the SAN.

●     Single-pane management: You can provision, manage, monitor, and troubleshoot the MDS 9148T using Cisco Data Center Network Manager (DCNM), which currently manages the entire suite of Cisco data center products.

●     Secure-boot and anti-counterfeiting technology: The MDS 9148T uses onboard hardware that protects the entire system from malicious attacks by securing access to critical components such as the bootloader, system image loader, and Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) interface.

SAN architectural benefits

The new 32-Gbps fabric switches address the requirement for highly scalable, virtualized, intelligent SAN infrastructure in current-generation data center environments. The industry is already poised to transition to 32-Gbps fixed switches with the availability of 32-Gbps HBAs and storage arrays from vendors. Additionally, as low-latency flash arrays and extremely dense virtualization deployments become more pervasive, fixed switches will be expected to provide 32-Gbps connectivity to the SAN core.

This solution offers several important benefits:

●     Server port consolidation: The demand for 32-Gbps fabric switches will increase as hyperscale virtualization doubles the virtual-machine density per rack, increasing the need for higher-bandwidth HBA ports per rack of blade or standalone servers. Soon 32-Gbps HBA ports will consolidate the current 16-Gbps HBA installed base, with the need to increase the server capacity in the same rack. Hence, the MDS 9148T, with 48-port density, provides an excellent solution, and the flexibility to grow from a 24-port base to 48 ports is an added advantage.

●     Simplification: Through consolidation, the SAN administrator can reduce complexity and simplify management. An MDS 9148T 32-Gbps 48-Port switch in N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) core mode with fibre channel switches connecting to it in N_Port Virtualization (NPV) mode, device ports can scale very cost-effectively with time without adding the burden of managing the NPV switches. Auto-zoning facilitates zero-touch automatic zoning without any need for configuring zoning on the 32-Gbps fixed switches that are deployed in standalone SANs.

●     Multiprotocol convergence: 32-Gbps links benefit from lower-latency when compared to lower-bandwidth links, bringing better-performing storage workloads to your storage array. Greater bandwidth also helps ensure less ISL congestion for the newer storage protocols that are expected to be available on externally attached storage arrays: for instance, NVMe over Fibre channel can co-exist on the same link as existing SCSI workloads.

●     Scale and performance: This fixed-form-factor switch supports the performance and scale required to deploy a dedicated and standalone Fibre Channel SAN connecting both initiators and targets without requiring any other switching infrastructure.

Platform compatibility

For detailed information about hardware and software compatibility as well as product interoperability, please refer to the MDS 9000 Series switch interoperability matrix.

Product specifications

Table 1 lists the specifications for the MDS 9148T 32-Gbps 48-Port Fibre Channel Switch.

Table 1.           Product specifications

Ordering information

Table 2 provides optional licenses that can be configured to enable additional features and capabilities on the Cisco MDS 9148T.

Table 3 provides ordering information for the MDS 9148T 32-Gbps 48-Port switch base modules.

Table 4 provides ordering information for the MDS 9148T switch spares orderable separately.

Table 5 provides ordering information for the MDS 9148T switch bundles.

Table 6 provides ordering information for the supported power cords.

Table 7 provides ordering information for the supported transceivers.

Table 8 provides ordering information for the minimum required software versions.

Table 9 provides ordering information for the accessory kits.

Table 2.           Optional licenses

Table 3.           Base modules

Table 4.           Spare modules

Table 5.           Bundled configurations

Table 6.           Power cords

Table 7.           Transceivers

Table 8.           System requirements

Table 9.           Accessories

Service and support

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For more information

For more information about the Cisco MDS 9148T Fibre Channel Switch, visit https://www.cisco.com/go/storage or contact your local Cisco account representative.

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