It was 20 years in the past when Cisco began transport the Cisco MDS 9000 storage networking switches in quantity to prospects, following the preliminary launch a number 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 have been now connecting “hosts, HBAs, and LUNs”, not “servers, NICs, and controllers”. But it surely was nonetheless networking, and our prospects appeared to Cisco for assist.
With that goal in thoughts, Cisco has launched 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 prospects over these final 20 years. I additionally consider they’ve superior the storage networking business at massive, which we’re a proud member of. 5 examples:
- Segmentation: Launched by way of digital SANs (VSANs) used to allow larger 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 cloth visibility with scalable self-learning capabilities at microsecond granularity (for each SCSI or FC-NVMe move).
- Automation: Leveraging Nexus Dashboard Material Controller RESTful API to assist MDS switch-based NX-API, Python SDK, Ansible modules to simplify cloth 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 Material Controller Congestion Evaluation capabilities that helps proactively determine and assist resolve cloth stage congestion.
- Funding Safety & Extensibility: Skill to leverage the identical modular MDS chassis by way of every main cloth know-how 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.
An Alternative to Thank Our Clients & Companions
What has not modified within the final 20 years is our dedication to our storage networking prospects in supporting their business-critical mission. Our prospects are in among the most demanding vertical industries together with monetary providers, authorities, media & leisure, manufacturing, and plenty of others. These are environments the place the workloads require highest ranges of efficiency, reliability, and uptime and the place Fibre Channel stays the preferred storage networking protocol.
Cisco intends to proceed supporting our current prospects and new ones by way of additional innovation and for years to come back. I’m grateful for our go-to-market and know-how companions, lots of whom have been with us for the reason that starting. These companions are important as storage prospects favor to buy their networking options as totally built-in, examined, and validated packages that additionally embody storage methods, software program, peripherals, and repair/assist 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 developed over these 20 years:
- “By means of our decades-long, valued partnership with Cisco, we’ve served prospects’ 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, reminiscent of digital SANs, complementing Dell’s high-end storage methods and serving to make buyer knowledge safe and at all times accessible.”
- “Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen our partnership develop and develop to handle the altering wants of our prospects 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 permit our prospects 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 prospects 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 associate with MDS know-how. Our 20-year historical past of joint growth with Cisco for FICON and Fibre Channel know-how with MDS has pushed worth at many IBM zSystems, IBM Storage, and Pink Hat OpenShift prospects. As our joint buyer base grows and we help our prospects with knowledge middle modernization, IBM c-type Storage Networking with autonomic path reset functionality, primarily based on Cisco MDS know-how, can 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 business. Over the previous 20 years, our longstanding relationship has been outlined by a shared dedication to innovation, interoperability, and a observe document of delivering cutting-edge options to our mutual prospects. Marvell® QLogic® 32GFC and 64GFC HBAs with the newest capabilities of congestion mitigation powered by Digital Lane know-how prolong the Cisco MDS Digital Hyperlink functionality to host and storage methods. It is a testomony to the ability of our continued collaboration, and I’m excited for the longer term as we proceed to attain success collectively.” Matt Kim, Vice President of Advertising, 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 question that digital data, aka knowledge, has by no means been extra essential for our prospects. Knowledge has been described as every part from the “new oil” to the “lifeblood” of contemporary enterprises and the digital financial system. Knowledge 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 functions securely and reliably. That perform is extra important than ever. So long as that’s the case, count on Cisco to proceed innovating within the storage networking house.
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