Used Cisco MDS Storage

Vibrant's Cisco MDS Overview:

Cisco first introduced MDS storage in 2002, a product family release that has dramatically changed the landscape of SAN solutions. Vibrant has been there from the start - offering a discount re-marketed alternative to Cisco storage.  Cisco’s goal with their MDS product line is to provide investment protection and align with today's trends in storage.  They provide the connectivity required between storage and compute layers in enterprise IT environments.

Because data is currently doubling in size every two years, the storage of massive streams of data is needed at organizations and companies alike.  Additionally, since more and more storage has become virtual, added layers of intelligence are essential.

Cisco has responded to these issues (including the issues of more traditional file storage like FCoE and NAS), and created an architecture that is able to connect all types of storage and is adaptable for future needs, while still offering speed and reliability.

Here is a brief summary of the key attributes of the Cisco MDS product line:

(All of which Vibrant can offer used at incredible savings!)

Cisco MDS 9000 Multilayer Switches:

This product set typically comes in 32-port and 48-port configurations so that you can choose the one that best suits your connectivity needs between virtual machines, storage subsystems and Inter Switching Links. It provides easier tracking of traffic flows.

These switches offer intelligent network services such as scalability and resiliency to networking. They provide an open platform for third-party storage, such as virtual storage. They also come with great management capabilities, so companies can keep track of data from all protocols. These switches provide investment protection because of a common architectural framework and shared modules across both the director-class and fabric switches. This way, companies will have an easy way to upgrade and to use common spare parts. The MDS 9000 family lowers the total cost of ownership of your data storage infrastructure.

Cisco MDS 9500 Series Multilayer Directors:

These director-class switches offer multiple layers of intelligence and they support many different protocols of storage such as fiber channel, iSCSI, FCoE, and naturally support for virtual storage.

The director-class series provides unified storage management, so that multiple switches and fabric are centralized. Directors also provide area manager software making total cost of ownership less. The base units include a 6, 9 or 13 slot modular chassis with dual supervisor 2 modules and power supplies to help ensure smooth, continuous operation and non-disruptive upgrade capability.

A layered design also includes the integration with fabric-based applications to fabric-wide services offering many solutions for business continuance, storage virtualization, and network assisted backup. This common software environment ensures that the user's SAN environment will scale properly and adapt as businesses grow.

Cisco MDS 9700 Multi-Layer Directors:

Cisco MDS 9700 Series Switches offer three times the bandwidth that is available to traditional SAN directors. Best of all, these directors have an architecture that makes them highly adaptable for the future. They can handle virtual storage and massive data. MDS 9700s have a “fault tolerant” design and can handle data being accessed from various protocols. These directors offer great SAN performance and support 16 Gbps fiber channel and 1.5 Tbps per slot. Components are redundant offering high availability for fabric cards, supervisor and power supplies.

There is no doubt that Cisco has innovated with the MDS product line to take on competitors like Brocade and offer an elite product. Cisco has realized the trends in data and created architectures that link older technologies to newer technologies. With data being so critical to business, and the fact that there are massive amounts of it, you want to be sure that you invest in storage and switching solutions that are smart long term investments. Make these investments economical by considering used equipment from Vibrant.

Cisco storage is versatile, adaptable, reliable and affordable. There appears to be very little downside, if any, when investing in this product line.

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For more information on used Cisco MDS equipment please Contact Us today. We offer discounted sale prices up to 90% off of Cisco’s listed price. To get more information on pricing, Request a Quote today.