Cisco MDS 9134 (DS-C9134-K9) Full Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview

Core Hardware Differentiators vs DS-C9124-K9

1. Higher total port count: 32×4G FC SFP ports plus two exclusive 10G X2 uplink ports (total 34 ports), dedicated high-speed ISL backbone links for core-edge SAN architecture, absent on MDS 9124.
2. Larger non-blocking fabric capacity: 416 Gbps full-duplex aggregate bandwidth vs 192 Gbps on MDS 9124, optimized for high-density multi-10G inter-switch trunk workloads.
3. Scalable port licensing baseline: Ships with 24 active FC ports factory-default, expandable to full 32 FC ports via single 8-port software license upgrade (MDS 9124 starts with only 8 base ports).
4. Dual independent hot-swappable fan modules with full front-to-back fixed airflow, designed for standard cold aisle rack containment (no reversed hot-aisle airflow variant).
5. Native 10G X2 uplink hardware built-in for high-speed fabric interconnection to MDS 9500 core directors, eliminating need for extra expansion modules for backbone ISLs.

Core High-Availability Design

Model Suffix Breakdown

• DS-C: Cisco MDS storage switch part number prefix
• 9134: MDS 9100 fixed fabric series, total 34 ports (32 FC host/storage + 2×10G uplink) classic non-T generation
• K9: Standard AC power SKU with full multilayer SAN feature license (DS-C9134-HV-K9 is separate high-voltage DC telecom variant; PSUs/fans non-interchangeable between AC/HV SKUs)

Chassis Port & Hardware Layout Definition

1. Front Fibre Channel Ports
   • Ports 1–32: Hot-swappable SFP slots, autosensing 1/2/4 Gbps Fibre Channel, all full non-blocking line-rate bandwidth; factory activates 24 ports by default, upgrade license unlocks all 32 FC ports
   • Ports 33–34: Dedicated fixed X2 10Gbps Fibre Channel uplink ports for high-speed ISL core backbone inter-switch links
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, FC port, 10G uplink 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: Fixed front-to-back cold air intake at port panel, hot exhaust from rear power supply compartment (cold aisle standard only, no reversed airflow option)

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. 10G uplink transceivers: DS-X2-FC10G-SR / DS-X2-FC10G-LW X2 modules for dedicated 10G ports
3. Power supply compatibility: Only 300W AC PSUs for DS-C9134-K9; HV DC 3000W PSUs exclusive to DS-C9134-HV-K9 variant, non-interchangeable
4. 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 aggregate capacity: 416 Gbps full-duplex system-wide bandwidth
• Wire-speed forwarding rate: Up to 416 Mpps Fibre Channel frame switching at full line rate
• Low-latency dynamic shared packet buffer pool optimized for OLTP database, virtualization 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 FC frame 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 FC ISL trunking, max 8 ports per logical bundle
• NPV/NPIV native feature: Consolidate hundreds of blade server host ports upstream to MDS core directors without core fabric overhead

Power & Cooling System

• Power supply bays: 2 hot-swappable redundant slots, each 300W AC 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; single fan module failure triggers SNMP alert without SAN traffic outage, minimum two functional fans required for stable operation
• Airflow: Fixed front-to-back cold aisle intake, rear hot exhaust
• Real-time monitoring: Fan RPM, internal chassis temperature, PSU voltage, SFP/X2 optical power, port and module 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 management guide)
• Bare chassis weight: 9.98 kg (22 lbs) without power supplies/fan modules; fully loaded max weight 12.7 kg (28 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

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 mixed 4G FC and 10G X2 uplink 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 streams
• 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/X2 optical power diagnostics
• Event notification via email, syslog and SNMP traps for fabric fault alerting

5. High Availability Capabilities (Core Differentiators vs DS-C9124-K9)

1. Dual hot-swappable redundant 300W AC power supplies (1+1 power failover, single PSU fully operational under full 34-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/X2 transceivers; live FRU replacement without chassis power shutdown or SAN traffic drop
4. All 32 FC ports full non-blocking 4Gbps bandwidth plus two dedicated 10G X2 uplink ports for high-speed core ISL trunks (absent on MDS 9124)
5. Default 24 active FC ports out of factory, only single 8-port license needed to unlock full 32 FC capacity (lower initial licensing cost vs MDS 9124 starting at 8 ports)
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 front-to-back airflow only, no modular port card expandability like MDS 9200/9509 directors, no native 16G/32G FC generation support

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Mid-to-Large Enterprise Multi-Floor Building Distribution SAN Switch
   Compact 1RU rack form factor delivers high-density 32×4G FC host ports plus two built-in 10G uplinks for inter-building core trunking; scalable port licensing allows customers to start with 24 ports and expand to full 32 as storage capacity grows, consolidating thousands of application servers and disk arrays for multi-story office facilities.
2. Large Enterprise Campus Core-Edge SAN Fabric
   Multiple DS-C9134-K9 edge switches deployed per building rack, utilizing dedicated 10G X2 uplinks to form high-speed ISL trunks connecting to central MDS 9500 core director, forming unified enterprise-wide VSAN-separated production, test and backup storage fabrics.
3. Large Regional Mission-Critical Headquarters SAN
   Financial, healthcare and government headquarters 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 with native high-speed 10G backbone uplinks.
4. Medium Service Provider Multi-Tenant PoP Storage Edge
   VSAN isolation feature logically separates multiple customer storage environments on a single physical MDS 9134 switch, reducing hardware TCO for medium carrier PoP edge storage workloads with built-in 10G uplinks for core backbone connectivity.
5. Legacy MDS 9000 Series Hardware Upgrade
   Drop-in performance upgrade for aging MDS 9124 fixed fabric switches, fully backward compatible with existing 4G Fibre Channel SFP transceivers while delivering extra 8 FC ports plus dedicated 10G ISL uplink ports and higher default licensed port count.

7. Standard Package Contents

Items Sold Separately (Not Included)

• Dual 300W AC hot-swappable redundant power supply units
• Dual hot-swappable fan modules
• DS-SFP-FC4G-SW / DS-SFP-FC4G-LW Fibre Channel SFP optical transceivers for FC host ports
• DS-X2-FC10G-SR / DS-X2-FC10G-LW X2 10G uplink transceivers for dedicated 10G ports
• Optional single 8-port FC expansion software license to unlock full 32 FC ports
• RS232 serial console rollover cable
• Fibre channel patch cords, cable management accessories, rack cable guides

Short Commercial Catalog Version (For Quotation & Datasheet Use)