Cisco MDS 9124 for IBM System Storage

Cisco MDS 9124 for IBM System Storage ... medium-sized businesses with a wide range of SAN capabilities. It can be used as part of SAN solutions from simple single-switch configurations to larger multi-switch configurations in support of fabric connectivity and advanced business continuity capabilities. Fabric connectivity capabilities can be the basis for infrastructure simplification solutions for IBM System i, System p and System x servers and storage consolidation and high-availability server clustering with IBM System Storage disk storage arrays. Business continuity capabilities can help businesses protect valuable data with IBM System Storage tape libraries and devices and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager data protection software.

A single Cisco MDS 9124 switch can serve as an initial building block for a Storage Area Network for those who want to obtain the benefits of storage consolidation and are just beginning to implement Fibre Channel storage systems. An entry-level configuration, for example, could consist of one or two Fibre Channel links to a disk storage array, or to an LTO tape drive. An entry-level, eight-port storage consolidation solution could support up to seven servers with a single path to either disk or tape. The On-Demand Port Activation feature is designed to enable a base switch to grow from 8 to 24 ports, in 8 port increments, to support more servers and more storage devices without taking the switch offline.