Cisco MDS 9140 (DS-C9140-K9) Full Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview

Core Hardware Differentiators vs Smaller MDS 9120 / MDS 9124

1. Maximum port count of all original non-T MDS 9100 fixed chassis: Total 40 autosensing 1/2G FC SFP ports, split into 8 dedicated full-rate target ports and 32 oversubscribed host ports, double the port density of MDS 9120 (20 ports) and higher than MDS 9124 (24 ports)Cisco.
2. Port performance tier design: 8 target ports with maximum buffer credits for high-performance disk/tape storage arrays and ISL backbone links; 32 host ports optimized for server attach with reduced buffer allocation to balance cost and density.
3. Dual 300W high-wattage redundant AC power supplies (MDS 9120 only uses 300W as well, but MDS 9124 lower power rating), supporting full 40-port populated load without power bottlenecks.
4. Dual independent hot-swappable fan modules for redundant cooling, single fan failure does not trigger SAN shutdown, no mandatory fan upgrade for basic SAN-OS operation.
5. Fixed front-to-back airflow for standard cold aisle rack containment, no reversed hot-aisle airflow variant available for this model.
6. Unified interoperability with all MDS 9500 core directors for building large multi-building campus SAN fabrics, supporting VSAN, IVR, FICON and zoning identical to larger modular directors.

Core High-Availability Design

Model Suffix Breakdown

• DS-C: Cisco MDS storage switch part number prefix
• 9140: MDS 9100 fixed fabric series, total 40 autosensing Fibre Channel SFP ports split into target/host tiers
• K9: Standard AC power SKU with full multilayer SAN feature license (DS-C9140-HV-K9 is separate high-voltage DC telecom variant; PSUs/fans non-interchangeable between AC/HV SKUs)

Chassis Port & Hardware Layout Definition

1. Front Panel Fibre Channel Ports: 40×hot-swappable SFP slots, autosensing 1Gbps / 2Gbps Fibre Channel
   • Ports 1–8: Full-rate target-optimized ports (max buffer credits, no oversubscription, for high-performance storage arrays, tape libraries, ISL inter-switch backbone links)
   • Ports 9–40: Host-optimized oversubscribed ports for physical servers, blade servers, virtualization host SAN attach
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 access
   • Physical reset button for factory default configuration 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 supporting 1+1 N+1 power redundancy
5. Front lower fan bays: Dual separate hot-swappable multi-fan modules (two independent fan assemblies for redundant cooling)
6. Airflow Specification: Fixed front-to-back cold air intake at port panel, hot air exhausted from rear power supply compartment (cold aisle standard only, no reversed airflow hardware option)

Supported Transceivers & Power Options

1. Fibre Channel SFP transceivers (sold separately):
   • DS-SFP-FC-2G-SW: 2Gbps short-wave multimode, 500m reach
   • DS-SFP-FC-2G-LW: 2Gbps long-wave single-mode, 10km reach
   • Backward compatible with 1G FC SFPs for legacy storage interoperation
2. Power supply compatibility: Only 300W AC PSUs supported for DS-C9140-K9; HV DC 3000W PSUs exclusive to DS-C9140-HV-K9 variant, non-interchangeable hardware
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 passive shared bus backplane capacity: Max 80 Gbps full-duplex aggregate bandwidth
• Wire-speed forwarding rate: Up to 80 Mpps Fibre Channel frame switching, limited by shared bus architecture
• Dynamic shared packet buffer pool; 255 buffer credits per full-rate target port, 12 buffer credits per oversubscribed host portCisco
• FC address table capacity: 1,048,576 N_Port identifiers for massive blade server rack deployments
• 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 ISL trunking, maximum 8 FC ports per logical bundle
• NPV/NPIV native feature: Consolidate hundreds of 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 protection)
• 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 fan modules required to avoid thermal shutdown
• Airflow direction: Fixed front-to-back cold aisle intake, rear hot exhaust
• Real-time monitoring: Fan RPM, internal chassis temperature, PSU voltage, SFP 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 × 43.69 cm × 58.67 cm (1.75 × 17.2 × 23.1 inches; extended depth 71.37cm with cable management guide)Cisco
• Bare chassis weight: 10.89 kg (24 lbs) without power supplies/fan modules; fully loaded max weight 11.34 kg (25 lbs) with dual PSUs and dual fan trays installedCisco
• 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

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 Multilayer Feature Set (Cisco SAN-OS Release 2.x / 3.x)

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 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 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 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 MDS 9120-K9 / MDS 9124-K9)

1. Dual hot-swappable high-wattage 300W AC power supplies (1+1 power failover, single PSU fully operational under full 40-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. 40 total FC ports (8 full-rate target + 32 host ports) – maximum port density of all non-T MDS 9100 fixed chassis, double MDS 9120 and higher than MDS 9124
5. Optimized buffer credit allocation for mixed storage/host workloads, ideal for balanced enterprise production + backup SAN environments
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 oversubscribed host port architecture creates bandwidth bottlenecks for all-storage deployments; no modular port card expandability like MDS 9200/9500 directors, no native 4G/16G/32G FC generation support

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Ultra-High-Density Multi-Floor Building Distribution SAN Switch
   Compact 1RU rack form factor delivers maximum port density for departmental storage consolidation; 8 full-rate target ports connect primary disk storage arrays and tape libraries, 32 host ports attach thousands of application servers and blade workstations, eliminating need to deploy multiple smaller 20/24-port MDS edge switches.
2. Large Enterprise Campus Core-Edge SAN Fabric
   Multiple DS-C9140-K9 edge switches deployed per building rack, 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 for tens of thousands of end-users.
3. Large Regional Mission-Critical Headquarters SAN
   Financial, healthcare and government headquarters require full dual power + fan redundancy to avoid site-wide catastrophic storage outages; integrates FICON mainframe DR replication workflows and centralized tape backup library consolidation in a single space-efficient 1RU chassis.
4. Medium Service Provider Multi-Tenant PoP Edge Storage Switch
   VSAN isolation feature logically separates multiple customer storage environments on a single physical MDS 9140 switch, reducing hardware TCO for medium carrier PoP edge storage workloads with maximum host port density.
5. Legacy MDS 9000 Series Hardware Upgrade
   Drop-in performance upgrade for aging MDS 9120 chassis, fully backward compatible with existing Fibre Channel SFP transceivers while delivering double the total port count and improved high-wattage power supply capacity for fully populated port deployments.

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-FC-2G-SW / DS-SFP-FC-2G-LW Fibre Channel SFP optical transceivers for all 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)