.SAN design reference guide Vol. 1-5 785350-001

• High-availability, fault-tolerant software
• PortChannel (ISL aggregation for highly resilient SAN architectures)
• Integrated Multiprotocol capability (MDS 95nn and 92nn) for SAN extension (FCIP and iSCSI)
• NPV—The following C-series Fibre Channel switches are NPV compliant: MDS 9124, MDS
9134, MDS 9124e, 8Gb fabric switch for HP BladeSystem c-Class, and SN6000C. NPV
requires SAN-OS 3.3(5b) (or later). See “SAN fabric connectivity and switch interoperability
rules” (page 152).
• FlexAttach virtual pWWN
The Cisco MDS 9124e Fabric Switch for HP c-Class BladeSystem, MDS 9124, MDS 9134,
8Gb fabric switch for HP BladeSystem c-Class, and SN6000C support NPV with FlexAttach.
FlexAttach provides automatic mapping of physical WWNs to virtual WWNs using NAT.
When NPV mode is enabled, FlexAttach allows SAN and server administrators to install and
replace servers without having to rezone or reconfigure the SAN. For more information on
FlexAttach, see “NPV with FlexAttach” (page 175).
• Storage Media Encryption (SME)
The MDS 9222i Multiservice Fabric Switch and the 18/4 Multiservice Module are SME
compliant.
• IO Accelerator (IOA)
The MDS 9222i Multiservice Fabric Switch and the 18/4 Multiservice Module are IOA
compliant.
Additional features of the Director switches include:
• Nondisruptive software upgrades
• Hot-swappable line cards, supervisors, power supplies, and SFPs
• Redundant supervisor, cross-bar fabric, and power supplies
NOTE: The following features are not supported by MDS 9124, MDS 9124e, or MDS 9134:
• IVR
• Remote SPAN
• Translative loop support
• FCC—No generation, quench reaction only
Table 43 (page 133) provides a comparison of the high-availability features for C-series Fibre
Channel switches.
Table 43 C-series Fibre Channel switch high-availability feature comparison
Protocol
support
Port module
support
Nondisruptive
code activation
Redundant
control
processor
Redundant/
hot-swappable
cooling
Redundant/
hot-swappable
powerModel
FCNoYesNoYes/YesYes/YesSN6000C Fabric
FCYesYesYesYes/YesYes/Yes
SN8500C 8-slot 16Gb
FC Director Switch
FCNoYesNoYes/YesYes/YesMDS 9124/9134 Fabric
FCNoYesNoN/AN/AMDS 9124e Fabric
FC
YesYesNoYes/YesYes/Yes
MDS 9222i Multiservice
Fabric
FCIP
C-series Fibre Channel switches 133