It was 20 years in the past when Cisco began transport the Cisco MDS 9000 storage networking switches in quantity to clients, following the preliminary launch a couple of months earlier than. At the moment, there have been questions on why Cisco had entered the “storage enterprise”. We didn’t see it fairly that manner. Certain, the lexicon was a little bit completely different. For instance, we had been now connecting “hosts, HBAs, and LUNs”, not “servers, NICs, and controllers”. Nevertheless it was nonetheless networking, and our clients regarded to Cisco for assist.
With that goal in thoughts, Cisco has launched quite a lot of groundbreaking storage networking improvements that leverage our complete knowledge middle networking arsenal together with Nexus switching and administration applied sciences. These improvements have benefited our clients over these final 20 years. I additionally imagine they’ve superior the storage networking trade at massive, which we’re a proud member of. 5 examples:
- Segmentation: Launched by way of digital SANs (VSANs) used to allow increased ranges of safety, virtualization, useful resource utilization and higher stability in SAN materials
- Visibility & Intelligence: Enabled by way of Cisco Silicon and SAN Analytics and Insights offering deep material visibility with scalable self-learning capabilities at microsecond granularity (for each SCSI or FC-NVMe circulation).
- Automation: Leveraging Nexus Dashboard Cloth Controller RESTful API to help MDS switch-based NX-API, Python SDK, Ansible modules to simplify material deployment and to decrease complexity and prices.
- Congestion Administration: Achieved by way of a Cisco-unique innovation designed to alleviate SAN congestion with no dependency on hosts or storage. That is additional enhanced by way of Nexus Dashboard Cloth Controller Congestion Evaluation capabilities that helps proactively establish and assist clear up material stage congestion.
- Funding Safety & Extensibility: Skill to leverage the identical modular MDS chassis by way of every main material expertise evolution (e.g., 16G to 64G migration and adoption of NVMe over FC), thereby eliminating the dreaded and extremely disruptive forklift upgrades. This was a design precept for the MDS modular chassis structure from day 1. Extensibility makes adoption simpler and the infrastructure extra sustainable.
Determine: Cisco MDS 9000 portfolio
An Alternative to Thank Our Clients & Companions
What has not modified within the final 20 years is our dedication to our storage networking clients in supporting their business-critical mission. Our clients are in a few of the most demanding vertical industries together with monetary providers, authorities, media & leisure, manufacturing, and lots of others. These are environments the place the workloads require highest ranges of efficiency, reliability, and uptime and the place Fibre Channel stays the most well-liked storage networking protocol.
Cisco intends to proceed supporting our present clients and new ones by way of additional innovation and for years to return. I’m grateful for our go-to-market and expertise companions, lots of whom have been with us because the starting. These companions are vital as storage clients want to buy their networking options as absolutely built-in, examined, and validated packages that additionally embrace storage programs, software program, peripherals, and repair/help agreements.
Cisco is lucky for our long-standing and enduring storage partnerships which have resulted in lots of buyer successes and compelling joint improvements. I gave our companions a chance to supply their very own views on how this partnership has advanced over these 20 years:
- “By our decades-long, valued partnership with Cisco, we’ve served clients’ business-critical knowledge and infrastructure wants,” stated Dave Lincoln, Vice President, Networking and Rising Server Options, Dell Applied sciences. “Cisco has introduced innovation to Fibre Channel networking with key MDS options, similar to digital SANs, complementing Dell’s high-end storage programs and serving to make buyer knowledge safe and all the time out there.”
- “Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen our partnership develop and develop to deal with the altering wants of our clients and the rising necessities for brand spanking new merchandise, options, providers, and consumption fashions. Collectively, we’ve targeted on co-creating and delivering choices that enable our clients to capitalize on their knowledge from the sting by way of the cloud and to the core. We stay excited and bullish about what’s subsequent for our partnership and the sorts of outcomes we are able to ship for our clients and for the world over the following 20 years.” Mark Ablett, President, Digital Infrastructure Enterprise Unit, Hitachi Vantara
- “IBM is proud to be Cisco’s solely OEM accomplice with MDS expertise. Our 20-year historical past of joint improvement with Cisco for FICON and Fibre Channel expertise with MDS has pushed worth at many IBM zSystems, IBM Storage, and Pink Hat OpenShift clients. As our joint buyer base grows and we help our clients with knowledge middle modernization, IBM c-type Storage Networking with autonomic path reset functionality, based mostly on Cisco MDS expertise, will probably be a key a part of the long-term worth IBM Storage delivers.” Sam Werner, VP, Product Administration, IBM Storage
- “Congratulations to Cisco MDS on their twentieth anniversary of delivering state-of-the-art Fibre Channel switches and administrators to the trade. Over the previous 20 years, our longstanding relationship has been outlined by a shared dedication to innovation, interoperability, and a monitor report of delivering cutting-edge options to our mutual clients. Marvell® QLogic® 32GFC and 64GFC HBAs with the most recent capabilities of congestion mitigation powered by Digital Lane expertise prolong the Cisco MDS Digital Hyperlink functionality to host and storage programs. This can be a testomony to the facility of our continued collaboration, and I’m excited for the long run as we proceed to attain success collectively.” Matt Kim, Vice President of Advertising and marketing, Server Connectivity Enterprise Unit, Marvell
- “NetApp is happy to congratulate Cisco on MDS’s twentieth anniversary. This milestone marks a protracted and valued partnership that brings greatest of sophistication options to the SAN market with MDS and FlexPod united in joint innovation.” Phil Brotherton, VP Options and Alliances, NetApp
Trying forward
There’s little doubt that digital data, aka knowledge, has by no means been extra essential for our clients. Information has been described as the whole lot from the “new oil” to the “lifeblood” of contemporary enterprises and the digital financial system. Information is a treasure trove of insights that may assist construct smarter merchandise, ship higher customer support, and outpace rivals. Storage space networks join knowledge and purposes securely and reliably. That perform is extra vital than ever. So long as that’s the case, anticipate Cisco to proceed innovating within the storage networking area.
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