Cisco MDS 9718 Chassis - Switch - Rack-mountable - DS-C9718=

• Outstanding SAN performance
  The combination of the 16-Gbps Fiber Channel switching module and Fabric-1 crossbar switching modules enables up to 1.5 terabits per second (Tbps) of front-panel Fiber Channel throughput between modules in each direction for each of the 16 MDS 9718 payload slots. This amount is twice the bandwidth needed to support a 48-port 16-Gbps Fiber Channel module at full line rate.
• High availability
  The MDS 9718 provides best-in-class availability. The director meets the same industry-leading availability standards as the other Cisco MDS 9700 series Multilayer Directors. All major components, including the fabric card, are redundant. You get grid redundancy on the power supply and 1+1 redundant supervisors, and you can add a fabric card to enable N+1 fabric redundancy. The MDS 9718 combines nondisruptive software upgrades, stateful process restart and failover, and full redundancy of all major components for best-in-class availability.
• Intelligent network services
  Migrate your SAN islands to enterprisewide storage networks with virtual SAN (VSAN) technology, access control lists (ACLs) for hardware-based intelligent frame processing, and fabricwide quality of service (QoS).
• Virtual machine transparency
  Deterministic hardware performance and a comprehensive feature set allow virtual machines to have the same SAN attributes as a physical server. On a per-virtual machine basis, the Cisco NX-OS software offers VSANs, QoS policies, access control, performance monitoring, and data protection to promote the scalability and mobility of virtual machines. Cisco Prime Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) provides end-to-end visibility all the way from the virtual machine to the storage device, with resource allocation, performance measurements, and predictions available on a per-virtual machine basis to enable rapid troubleshooting in mission-critical virtualized environments.
• Unified SAN management
  The MDS 9700 series includes built-in storage network management with all features available through a command-line interface (CLI) or Cisco Prime DCNM, a centralized network management tool that simplifies management of unified fabrics. The network manager supports integration with third-party storage management applications to allow transparent interaction with existing management tools. The network manager supports federation of up to 10 DCNM servers to manage up to 150,000 devices using a single management pane.
• Sophisticated diagnostics
  Intelligent diagnostics, protocol decoding, network analysis tools, and the Cisco call home capability give you reliability, faster problem resolution, and reduced service costs. The generic online diagnostics framework is a suite of diagnostic tools that verify that hardware and internal data paths are operating properly. It offers boot-time diagnostics, continuous monitoring, standby fabric loopback tests, and on-demand and scheduled tests. It enables the rapid fault isolation and systems monitoring that are critical in today's continuously evolving operating environments.

The Cisco MDS 9718 Multilayer Director has the industry's highest port density for a SAN director, with 768 line-rate 16-Gbps Fiber Channel ports. It is ready for future support for 768 line-rate 32-Gbps Fiber Channel ports. The MDS 9718 also supports the Cisco 24-port 40-Gbps Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) line card. It is designed for deployment in midsize to large enterprises. The MDS 9718 enables SAN consolidation and collapsed-core solutions for large enterprises, thereby reducing the number of managed switches and leading to easy-to-manage solutions, providing more front panel ports by reducing the number of ports used on Inter-Switch Links (ISLs), and offering room for future growth.
The MDS 9718 addresses the stringent storage requirements for large virtualized data centers. As a director-class SAN switch, the MDS 9718 uses the same operating system and management interface as other Cisco data center switches. It brings intelligent capabilities to a high-performance, protocol-independent switch fabric. You gain uncompromising availability, security, and scalability; simplified management; and the capability to flexibly integrate new technologies. The MDS 9718 lets you transparently deploy unified fabrics with Fiber Channel and FCoE connectivity for low total cost of ownership (TCO).