Cisco DS-C9124-K9 (MDS 9124) Full Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview

Core Hardware Differentiators vs DS-C9120-K9

1. 24 total autosensing FC ports (vs 20 ports on MDS 9120),every port dedicated full 4Gbps non-blocking bandwidth(no host-side oversubscription on MDS 9120)Cisco.
2. Flexible on-demand port licensing: Ships with 8 active ports by default, expandable in 8-port increments to 16 or full 24 ports via software license without hardware replacement.
3. Higher total system fabric capacity: 192 Gbps aggregate full-duplex bandwidth vs 20 Gbps shared bus on MDS 9120.
4. Native NPV (N_Port Virtualizer) edge switch mode optimized for large core-edge SAN architectures, a limited feature on MDS 9120.
5. Dual shared hot-swappable fan trays supporting reversible airflow options (red front-intake / blue rear-intake fans for cold/hot aisle rack layouts).

Core High-Availability Design

Model Suffix Breakdown

• DS-C: Cisco MDS storage switch part number prefix
• 9124: MDS 9100 fixed fabric series, total 24 autosensing Fibre Channel SFP ports
• K9: Standard AC power SKU with base multilayer SAN feature license (DS-C9124-HV-K9 is separate high-voltage DC telecom variant, PSUs/fans non-interchangeable between airflow variants)

Chassis Port & Hardware Layout Definition

1. Front Panel Fibre Channel Ports: 24×hot-swappable SFP slots, autosensing 1/2/4 Gbps Fibre Channel, all ports full non-blocking 4Gbps bandwidth (no oversubscription)
   • Ports 1–8: Default licensed active ports out of factory
   • Ports 9–24: On-demand licensed expansion ports (activate via 8-port license upgrades)
2. Out-of-Band Management Interfaces:
   • RJ45 RS232 serial console port for local CLI access
   • Isolated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet out-of-band management port for remote SSH/Telnet/SNMP
   • Physical reset button for factory default recovery
3. Front Diagnostic LED Bank: Global system status, power supply A/B, fan module, port link/activity, fault alarm, UID blue beacon indicator
4. Rear Compartment Layout: Dual independent hot-swappable 300W AC power supply bays + dual separate hot-swappable fan modules
5. Airflow Specification Two options:
   • Red fan/PSU: Front-to-back cold intake at port panel, rear hot exhaust (cold aisle standard)
   • Blue fan/PSU: Back-to-front rear cold intake, front hot exhaust (hot aisle containment racks)

Supported Transceivers & Power Options

1. Fibre Channel SFP transceivers (sold separately):
   • DS-SFP-FC4G-SW: 4Gbps short-wave multimode (500m)
   • DS-SFP-FC4G-LW: 4Gbps long-wave single-mode (10km)
   • Backward compatible with 2G / 1G FC SFPs
2. Power supply compatibility: Only 300W AC PSUs for DS-C9124-K9; HV DC PSUs exclusive to DS-C9124-HV-K9, non-interchangeable
3. No Ethernet downlink ports; purpose-built exclusively for Fibre Channel block storage SAN workloads

3. Hardware & Physical Specifications

Core SAN Switching & Routing Performance

• Total non-blocking fabric capacity: 192 Gbps full-duplex aggregate bandwidthCisco
• Wire-speed forwarding rate: Up to 192 Mpps Fibre Channel frame switching
• Dynamic shared low-latency packet buffer pool optimized for OLTP database and backup tape burst I/O
• FC address table capacity: 1,048,576 N_Port identifiers
• Maximum VSANs: 4094 isolated virtual storage fabrics
• Maximum active zone sets: 256 zone sets, up to 2000 zones per fabric
• Jumbo frame FC MTU support: Up to 9000 bytes
• Port modes supported: F (Fabric host), FL (Loop), TL (Extended Loop), E (ISL), TE (Extended ISL), NP (NPV edge host)
• Link aggregation: PortChannel for multi-port ISL trunking, max 8 FC ports per logical bundle
• NPV feature: N_Port Virtualizer edge mode to consolidate hundreds of host ports upstream to core MDS directors

Power & Cooling System

• Power supply bays: 2 hot-swappable redundant slots, each 300W PSU fully powers full chassis independently (1+1 N+1 failover)
• AC input voltage range: 100–240V 50/60Hz universal auto-ranging AC
• Fan modules: Two separate hot-swappable multi-fan assemblies, minimum two functional fans required to avoid thermal shutdown; single fan failure triggers SNMP alert without SAN traffic outage
• Dual airflow hardware options (red / blue color coded PSUs/fans, non-interchangeable)
• Real-time monitoring: Fan RPM, internal chassis temperature, PSU voltage, SFP optical power, port fault logging via console syslog and SNMP v1/v2c/v3 traps

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Rack form factor: 1 RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 4.45 cm × 44.45 cm × 40.64 cm (1.75 × 17.5 × 16 inches; extended depth 71.37cm with cable guide)
• Bare chassis weight: 8.4 kg (18.5 lbs) without power supplies/fan modules; fully loaded max weight 10.9 kg (24 lbs) with dual PSUs and dual fan trays installed
• Operating temperature range: 0°C to 40°C (32°F–104°F); certified altitude up to 3000 meters
• Storage temperature range: -40°C to 75°C (-40°F–167°F)
• Relative humidity: 10%–90% non-condensing operating; 5%–95% non-condensing storage
• Compliance Certifications: FCC Class A, UL 60950-1, CE, VCCI Class A, NEBS Level 3, RoHS compliant

Supervisor/Control Plane Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

• RJ45 RS232 serial console port for local CLI access
• Dedicated isolated 10/100BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management port
• Front panel multi-status LED bank for real-time hardware health visibility

4. Full SAN-OS / NX-OS Multilayer Feature Set

Layer 2 Fibre Channel Switching & Fabric Services

• VSAN Virtual Storage Area Network: Logical fabric isolation for multi-application/multi-tenant storage segmentation
• Hard port zoning + soft WWN zoning for granular host-storage access control
• Full FICON protocol support for IBM mainframe disk/tape storage connectivity
• Inter-Switch Link (ISL) trunking, PortChannel load balancing across multiple FC ports
• DTP Fibre Channel trunk negotiation, FSPF fabric dynamic domain ID routing
• Local SPAN, RSPAN remote SAN traffic mirroring for storage performance troubleshooting
• Broadcast/multicast storm suppression per FC port to eliminate fabric flooding outages
• NPV N_Port Virtualizer edge switch mode for large core-edge SAN scaling

Multilayer Storage Routing & Multicast Features

• FSPF Fibre Channel Shortest Path First dynamic fabric routing for multi-switch SAN topologies
• PIM-SM IP multicast for cross-fabric backup replication traffic
• Static FC route configuration for cross-VSAN inter-fabric connectivity
• Licensed IVR Inter-VSAN Routing feature for controlled data movement between isolated VSANs

Advanced SAN QoS & Traffic Prioritization

• Four hardware priority queues per Fibre Channel port for tiered storage traffic classification
• Ingress frame policing, egress bandwidth shaping to throttle low-priority backup/replication streams
• Pre-built QoS templates for production OLTP, tape backup, and disaster recovery replication
• Dedicated high-priority queue for low-latency database and virtualization I/O workloads

Enterprise SAN Security Suite

• Port security: Static WWN locking to block unauthorized server/storage device attach
• RBAC Role-Based Access Control granular CLI user privilege partitioning
• SSHv2 encrypted remote CLI management, SNMPv3 secure monitoring, encrypted startup configuration files
• DH-CHAP mutual authentication for ISL inter-switch link fabric authentication
• Port lockdown, VSAN read-only access permissions, full audit logging for all fabric configuration changes
• Compatible with external MDS SSM encryption and replication service modules

Monitoring & SAN Management Tools

• Cisco Fabric Manager / DCNM-SAN centralized graphical SAN fabric monitoring and provisioning
• Isolated out-of-band Ethernet management port for offline device access during fabric outages
• Onboard flash storage for SAN-OS/NX-OS image upgrades and configuration backup archives
• Cisco Discovery Protocol (CDP) automatic MDS fabric neighbor device discovery
• Real-time storage telemetry: Port throughput, latency, frame error counters, SFP optical power diagnostics
• Event notification via email, syslog and SNMP traps for fabric fault alerting

5. High Availability Capabilities (Core Differentiators vs DS-C9120-K9)

1. Dual hot-swappable redundant 300W AC power supplies (1+1 power failover, single PSU fully operational under full 24-port load)
2. Dual independent hot-swappable fan modules with individual fault detection and real-time SNMP fault alerting
3. Full OIR Online Insertion and Removal support for fan modules, power supplies and SFP transceivers; live FRU replacement without chassis power shutdown or SAN traffic drop
4. All 24 ports full non-blocking 4Gbps bandwidth (no oversubscription bottlenecks of MDS 9120)
5. On-demand port licensing enables pay-as-you-grow expansion without hardware replacement
6. NPV edge switch mode simplifies large core-edge enterprise SAN architecture deployments
7. VSAN fabric isolation limits fault domains to single virtual storage segment, preventing fabric-wide broadcast storms
8. FSPF dynamic routing automatic failover to alternate ISL paths with sub-second convergence
9. Limitation: Fixed 1RU compact chassis with no modular port card expandability like MDS 9200/9509 directors

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Mid-Size Enterprise Multi-Floor Building Distribution SAN Switch
   Compact 1RU rack form factor fits standard server edge racks; scalable port licensing allows customers to start with 8 ports and expand to full 24 as storage capacity grows, consolidating thousands of IP servers and disk arrays for multi-story office facilities.
2. Medium Enterprise Campus Core-Edge SAN Fabric
   Multiple DS-C9124-K9 edge switches deployed per building floor, interconnected via high-speed ISL trunk links to central MDS 9500 core director, forming unified enterprise-wide VSAN-separated production, test and backup storage fabrics.
3. Regional Mission-Critical Branch Office Disaster Recovery SAN
   Financial, healthcare and government remote branch storage deployments require full dual power + fan redundancy to avoid backup tape library and database storage outages; integrated FICON support enables mainframe DR replication workflows.
4. Small Service Provider Multi-Tenant PoP Storage Edge
   VSAN isolation feature logically separates multiple customer storage environments on a single physical MDS 9124 switch, reducing hardware TCO for small carrier PoP edge storage workloads.
5. Legacy MDS 9000 Series Hardware Upgrade
   Drop-in performance upgrade for aging MDS 9120 first-generation fixed fabric switches, fully backward compatible with existing Fibre Channel SFP transceivers while delivering full non-blocking port bandwidth, NPV edge mode and scalable on-demand port licensing.

7. Standard Package Contents

Items Sold Separately (Not Included)

• Dual 300W AC hot-swappable redundant power supply units (red for front-to-back, blue for back-to-front airflow)
• Dual hot-swappable fan modules (airflow color-matched to PSUs, non-interchangeable)
• DS-SFP-FC4G-SW / DS-SFP-FC4G-LW Fibre Channel SFP optical transceivers
• Optional 8-port / 16-port on-demand port activation software licenses
• RS232 serial console rollover cable
• Fibre channel patch cords, cable management accessories, rack cable guides

Short Commercial Catalog Version (For Quotation & Datasheet Use)