Cisco MDS 9148T (DS-C9148T-K9 Series) Full Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview

1. DS-C9148T-24PITK9 (Intake / I): Front-to-back cold aisle airflow (air intake front port side, exhaust rear)
2. DS-C9148T-24PETK9 (Exhaust / E): Back-to-front hot aisle airflow (air intake rear power side, exhaust front port side)

Core Hardware Differentiators vs DS-C9148S-K9 (16G model)

1. Native 32Gbps Fibre Channel SFP+ ports (backward compatible with 4/8/16/32G), full line-rate non-blocking per-port bandwidth; MDS 9148S max only 16G FC supportCisco.
2. Reworked port licensing: Ships with24 active ports factory default, expandable in 8-port increments to 32, 40 or full 48 ports via M9148T-PL8T single 8-port license tiers (MDS 9148S uses 12-port blocks)Cisco.
3. High-performance ASIC architecture with massive expansion of FC address table, TCAM and Flexible NetFlow scale optimized for NVMe, virtualization and MPLS multi-tenant VPN workloads.
4. 650W 80 Plus Platinum high-efficiency redundant power supplies, stable under full 48×32G populated load (MDS 9148S uses standard 300W PSUs).
5. Four independent hot-swappable fan modules with multi-fan fault tolerance (survive up to two fan failures without thermal shutdown), stronger thermal headroom for dense 32G transceiver power draw.
6. Advanced native hardware features: Slow drain detection/isolation, VMID virtual machine awareness, VOQ virtual output queuing, full EVPN-FC interoperability, onboard Python interpreter and REST NX-API automation absent from MDS 9148S 16G switchesCisco.
7. Dual bidirectional airflow hardware options fully compatible with modern cold/hot aisle data center rack containment.

Core High-Availability Design

Model Suffix Breakdown

• DS-C: Cisco MDS storage switch part number prefix
• 9148T: MDS 9100-T modern 32G fixed fabric series, total 48 autosensing SFP+ Fibre Channel ports
• K9: Standard AC power SKU with full multilayer NX-OS enterprise/carrier feature license; separate HV DC telecom variant DS-C9148T-HV-K9 sold independently (PSUs/fans non-interchangeable between AC/HV and airflow I/E SKUs)
• I = Intake (front-to-back cold aisle), E = Exhaust (back-to-front hot aisle)

Chassis Port & Hardware Layout Definition

1. Front Fibre Channel Ports: 48×hot-swappable SFP+ slots, autosensing 4/8/16/32 Gbps Fibre Channel, every port full non-blocking line-rate bandwidth
   • Factory default: Only 24 ports licensed active
   • Expand via M9148T-PL8T 8-port incremental software licenses to 32 → 40 → full 48 ports
2. Out-of-Band Management Interfaces
   • RJ45 RS232 serial console port + Mini USB dual local CLI access
   • Isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management port
   • External USB Type-A flash storage slot for NX-OS image upgrades, configuration backup and syslog export
   • 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: Two independent hot-swappable 650W Platinum AC power supply bays supporting 1+1 N+1 power redundancy
5. Front lower fan bays: Four separate hot-swappable multi-fan variable-speed fan assemblies
6. Dual Airflow Hardware Options (color-coded PSUs/fans non-interchangeable):
   • Intake (I / red): Front-to-back cold air intake at port panel, hot air exhausted from rear power supply compartment (standard cold aisle rack)
   • Exhaust (E / blue): Back-to-front cold air intake at rear power panel, hot air exhausted from front port panel (hot aisle containment racks)

Supported Transceivers & Power Options

1. Fibre Channel SFP+ transceivers (sold separately):
   • DS-SFP-FC32G-SW: 32Gbps short-wave multimode (500m)
   • DS-SFP-FC32G-LW: 32Gbps long-wave single-mode (10km)
   • Backward compatible with 8G / 16G FC SFPs for legacy storage interoperation
2. Power supply compatibility: C6848T-650AC 650W Platinum AC PSUs exclusive to DS-C9148T-K9; HV DC 650W PSUs for DS-C9148T-HV-K9 variant, airflow-specific PSUs cannot be mixed between I/E chassis
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 aggregate capacity: 1.536 Tbps full-duplex single-chassis bandwidth
• Wire-speed forwarding rate: Up to 1.2 Bpps Fibre Channel frame switching at full 32G line rate
• Low-latency virtual output queuing (VOQ) shared packet buffer pool optimized for NVMe flash, OLTP database and multi-tenant VPN burst I/O
• FC address table capacity: 1,048,576 N_Port identifiers (massive scale for 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 FC ISL trunking, maximum 16 FC ports per logical bundle (higher than MDS 9148S 8-port limit)
• NPV/NPIV native feature: Consolidate thousands of server host ports upstream to MDS core directors without core fabric overhead
• Slow drain detection hardware ASIC: Automatically isolate slow storage targets to prevent fabric-wide buffer credit starvation storms
• VMID virtual machine awareness: Visibility into VM storage I/O flows via VM-tagged FC frames for DCNM analyticsCisco

Power & Cooling System

• Power supply bays: 2 hot-swappable redundant slots, each 650W Platinum 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, 80 Plus Platinum high efficiency
• Fan modules: Four separate hot-swappable multi-fan assemblies; minimum two functional fans required to avoid thermal shutdown, up to two fan failures tolerated with four-fan full redundancy
• 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; major thermal alarm threshold at 55°C

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Rack form factor: 1 RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 4.37 cm × 43.94 cm × 56.64 cm (1.72 × 17.3 × 22.3 inches)
• Bare chassis weight: 8.5 kg (18.7 lbs) without power supplies/fan modules; fully loaded max weight 12.7 kg (28 lbs) with dual PSUs and four populated fan trays installed
• Operating temperature range: 0°C to 40°C (32°F–104°F); certified altitude up to 2000 meters
• Storage temperature range: -40°C to 70°C (-40°F–158°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, FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validated
• Typical power consumption: 250W fully populated with 48×32G SFP+ transceivers under full traffic load
• MTBF: 300,000 hours under standard data center and service provider PoP operating conditions

Out-of-Band Management Interfaces

• Dual local CLI access: RJ45 RS232 serial port + Mini USB console port
• Dedicated isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management port
• External USB flash storage for offline NX-OS image and configuration archives
• Front panel multi-status LED bank for real-time hardware health visibility

4. Full NX-OS Multilayer Feature Set (Cisco NX-OS MDS Release 9.x Universal Image)

Layer 2 Fibre Channel Switching & Fabric Services

• VSAN Virtual Storage Area Network: Logical fabric isolation for multi-application/multi-tenant storage segmentation (expandable VSAN license tiers)
• Hard port zoning + soft WWN Smart 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 8G/16G/32G FC ports (max 16-port bundles)
• DTP Fibre Channel trunk negotiation, FSPF fabric dynamic domain ID routing
• Local SPAN, RSPAN, ESPAN enhanced remote SAN traffic mirroring for multi-session 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
• Slow drain detection and congestion isolation hardware feature to mitigate buffer credit starvation
• POAP Power On Auto Provisioning zero-touch switch deployment for mass access rack rollouts
• VMID virtual machine flow tracking for end-to-end virtual storage visibilityCisco

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
• Complete carrier-grade MPLS service suite: MPLS LDP, VPLS, VPWS, EVPN-FC interoperability, MPLS VPN IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack
• PIM-SSM optimized for synchronous/asynchronous disaster recovery storage replication
• Static FC route redistribution between VSAN and MPLS domains

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, NVMe flash storage, tape backup, and disaster recovery replication streams
• Dedicated high-priority queue for low-latency real-time unified communications and database workloads
• Medianet media optimization for enterprise video and telepresence storage workflows

Enterprise & Service Provider 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, integrated with Cisco ISE
• 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
• FIPS 140-2 validated security compliance for government and financial regulated environments
• Cisco TrustSec security group tagging for end-to-end policy segmentation across campus and data center domains
• IPv6 over Fibre Channel support for modern dual-stack management networks
• Secure Boot and anti-counterfeit hardware validation

Monitoring & SAN Management Tools

• Cisco DCNM-SAN centralized graphical SAN fabric monitoring, provisioning and REST API automation
• Isolated out-of-band Ethernet management port for offline device access during fabric outages
• External USB flash storage for offline NX-OS image upgrades, configuration backup archives and syslog export
• 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
• GOLD generic online diagnostics for continuous hardware health validation without traffic interruption
• Onboard Python interpreter + NX-API REST interfaces for custom SAN automation scriptsCisco

5. High Availability Capabilities (Core Differentiators vs MDS 9148S-K9 16G Model)

1. Dual hot-swappable high-efficiency 650W Platinum AC redundant power supplies (1+1 power failover protection, stable under full 48×32G port load)
2. Four redundant variable-speed hot-swappable fan modules with multi-fan fault tolerance (survive two fan failures without SAN outage)
3. Full OIR Online Insertion and Removal support for fan tray, power supplies and SFP+ transceivers; live FRU replacement without chassis power shutdown or SAN traffic drop
4. Native 32G full non-blocking per-port Fibre Channel bandwidth (DS-C9148S-K9 limited to maximum 16G line rate)
5. Pay-as-you-grow 8-port incremental licensing scaling from 24 base active ports up to full 48 ports, simplified upgrade tiers vs 12-port blocks on MDS 9148S
6. Dual bidirectional airflow hardware options fully compatible with modern cold/hot aisle data center rack containment architectures
7. Massive 1.536 Tbps single-chassis non-blocking fabric capacity, far exceeding MDS 9148S 768G bandwidth
8. Modern NX-OS software stack with native EVPN, POAP, VMID analytics, onboard Python and REST API automation absent from MDS 9148S switches
9. Expanded VOQ buffer, TCAM and Flexible NetFlow scale optimized for MPLS multi-tenant carrier PoP deployments
10. Limitation: Fixed compact 1RU chassis with no modular port card expandability like MDS 9200/9509 directors, no native 64G FC generation support

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Medium Virtualized Data Center Rack-Scale Edge SAN Switch
   Compact 1RU rack form factor fits standard server edge rack positions; scalable pay-as-you-grow 8-port licensing allows customers to start with minimal 24 ports and expand to full 48 as virtualization and 32G NVMe flash storage capacity grows, consolidating hundreds of virtual machine hosts and high-performance all-flash arrays in leaf-spine SAN architectures.
2. Large Multi-Building Enterprise Campus Core-Edge SAN Fabric
   Multiple DS-C9148T-K9 edge switches deployed per building rack, utilizing mixed 16G/32G ISL trunk links to central MDS 9700 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 / Government SAN
   Financial, healthcare and government headquarters storage deployments require complete dual power + multi-fan hardware redundancy to avoid site-wide catastrophic storage outages; integrates FICON mainframe DR replication, MPLS VPN multi-tenant segmentation and high-density blade server rack consolidation in a space-efficient 1RU chassis.
4. Medium Service Provider Multi-Tenant PoP Edge Storage Switch
   Native full MPLS/VPLS/EVPN carrier-grade feature set and massive FC address table scale make DS-C9148T-K9 ideal for carrier PoP edge deployments, terminating hundreds of 32G enterprise customer access circuits and high-speed core backbone trunks with logical VSAN multi-tenant isolation.
5. Legacy MDS 9148S 16G SAN Hardware Refresh Upgrade
   Drop-in performance upgrade for aging 16G MDS 9148S fixed fabric switches, fully backward compatible with existing 8G/16G Fibre Channel SFP transceivers while unlocking native 32G line-rate bandwidth, four-fan fault tolerance, MPLS carrier-grade feature set and modern NX-OS automation workflows.

7. Standard Package Contents

Items Sold Separately (Not Included)

• Dual 650W Platinum AC hot-swappable redundant power supply units (airflow color-matched I/E variants non-interchangeable)
• Four matching hot-swappable variable-speed fan modules (airflow-specific to PSU SKU)
• M9148T-PL8T 8-port incremental software activation licenses to expand active FC port count
• SFP (1G/4G/8G) / SFP+ (16G/32G) optical fiber transceivers for all chassis FC ports
• RS232 serial console rollover cable, mini USB console cable
• USB flash memory sticks for NX-OS image and configuration storage
• Fibre channel patch cords, cable management accessories, rack cable guides

Short Commercial Catalog Version (For Quotation & Datasheet Use)