Cisco MDS 9148V (DS-C9148V-K9) Full Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview

1. DS-C9148V-24PITK9 (Intake / I): Front-to-back cold aisle airflow (air intake front port panel, exhaust rear power side)
2. DS-C9148V-24PETK9 (Exhaust / E): Back-to-front hot aisle airflow (air intake rear power panel, exhaust front port panel)
   HV DC telecom variant DS-C9148V-HV-K9 sold separately; all PSUs/fans are color-coded and non-interchangeable between AC/HV and airflow I/E SKUsCisco.

Core Hardware Differentiators vs MDS 9148S (16G) & MDS 9148T (32G)

1. Native 64Gbps Fibre Channel autosensing SFP+ ports (backward compatible with 8/16/32G), full line-rate non-blocking per-port bandwidth; MDS 9148S max only 16G, MDS 9148T limited to 32G generationCisco.
2. Optimized port licensing baseline: Ships with24 active ports factory default, expandable in 12-port single license increments to full 48 active ports (MDS 9148S starts at 12 ports with 12-port blocks; MDS 9148T uses 8-port tiers).
3. Massive 3.2 Tbps single-chassis non-blocking fabric capacity, double the 1.536 Tbps bandwidth of MDS 9148T, built for NVMe all-flash, AI database and multi-tenant MPLS high-throughput storage workloads.
4. Four independent hot-swappable fan modules with multi-fan fault tolerance (survive up to two fan failures without thermal shutdown); MDS 9148S only dual fans with limited fault resilience.
5. Heavy-duty 650W high-efficiency Platinum redundant AC power supplies stable under full 48×64G populated load (MDS 9148S uses low-wattage 300W PSUs).
6. Next-gen storage ASIC hardware features: Slow drain detection/isolation, VMID virtual machine I/O tracking, VOQ virtual output queuing, integrated SAN analytics, expanded FC address table and larger TCAM/QoS flow scale optimized for NVMe flash virtualizationCisco.
7. Full carrier-grade feature stack: Native MPLS, VPLS, VPWS, EVPN-FC interoperability, POAP zero-touch provisioning, onboard Python interpreter + REST NX-API automation, FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validated security, Secure Boot and anti-counterfeit hardware validation absent from MDS 9148S 16G switches.
8. Dual bidirectional airflow hardware options fully compatible with modern cold/hot aisle data center rack containment architectures.

Core High-Availability Design

Model Suffix Breakdown

• DS-C: Cisco MDS storage switch part number prefix
• 9148V: MDS 9100-V modern 64G fixed fabric series, total 48 autosensing SFP+ Fibre Channel ports
• K9: Standard AC power SKU with full multilayer NX-OS enterprise/carrier feature license
• I = Intake (front-to-back cold aisle airflow), E = Exhaust (back-to-front hot aisle airflow)

Chassis Port & Hardware Layout Definition

1. Front Fibre Channel Ports: 48×hot-swappable SFP+ slots, autosensing 8/16/32/64 Gbps Fibre Channel, every port full non-blocking line-rate bandwidth
   • Factory default: Only 24 ports licensed active
   • Expand via M91VX-PL12 12-port incremental software licenses to full 48 ports
2. Out-of-Band Management Interfaces
   • RJ45 RS232 serial console port + Mini USB dual local CLI access
   • Dual isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management ports (in-band SAN analytics export support)Cisco
   • 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 (red): Front-to-back cold air intake at port panel, hot air exhausted from rear power supply panel (standard cold aisle rack)
   • Exhaust (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-FC64G-SW: 64Gbps short-wave multimode (500m)
   • DS-SFP-FC64G-LW: 64Gbps long-wave single-mode (10km)
   • Backward compatible with 8G / 16G / 32G FC SFPs for legacy storage interoperation
2. Power supply compatibility: C6848V-650AC 650W Platinum AC PSUs exclusive to DS-C9148V-K9; HV DC 650W PSUs for DS-C9148V-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: 3.2 Tbps full-duplex single-chassis bandwidth
• Wire-speed forwarding rate: Up to 1.5 Bpps Fibre Channel frame switching at full 64G 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: End-to-end VM storage I/O flow tracking for DCNM analytics
• Native NVMe/FC frame processing for low-latency all-flash NVMe storage workloadsCisco

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°CCisco
• Typical power consumption: 270W fully populated with 48×64G SFP+ transceivers under full traffic load
• MTBF: 290,000 hours under standard data center and service provider PoP operating conditions

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 13.2 kg (29 lbs) with dual 650W 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 validatedCisco

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/64G 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 visibility
• NVMe/FC optimized frame handling for low-latency flash workloadsCisco

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 to prevent unauthorized firmware tampering

Monitoring & SAN Management Tools

• Cisco DCNM-SAN centralized graphical SAN fabric monitoring, provisioning and REST API automation
• Dual isolated out-of-band Ethernet management ports for offline device access during fabric outages and analytics export
• 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 scripts

5. High Availability Capabilities (Core Differentiators vs MDS 9148S-K9 16G Model & MDS 9148T-K9 32G Model)

1. Dual hot-swappable high-efficiency 650W Platinum AC redundant power supplies (1+1 power failover protection, stable under full 48×64G 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 64G full non-blocking per-port Fibre Channel bandwidth (MDS 9148S max 16G, MDS 9148T max 32G line rate)
5. Pay-as-you-grow 12-port incremental licensing scaling from 24 base active ports up to full 48 ports, higher default baseline reduces upfront licensing cost vs MDS 9148S starting at 12 ports
6. Dual bidirectional airflow hardware options fully compatible with modern cold/hot aisle data center rack containment architectures
7. Massive 3.2 Tbps single-chassis non-blocking fabric capacity, double MDS 9148T 1.536 Tbps bandwidth, optimized for high-throughput NVMe and MPLS multi-tenant workloads
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 carrier PoP deployments
10. Limitation: Fixed compact 1RU chassis with no modular port card expandability like MDS 9200/9509 directors, no native 128G Fibre Channel generation support

6. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Medium-to-Large Virtualized Data Center Rack-Scale Edge SAN Switch
   Compact 1RU rack form factor fits standard server edge rack positions; scalable pay-as-you-grow 12-port licensing allows customers to start with 24 pre-activated ports and expand to full 48 as virtualization and 64G 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-C9148V-K9 edge switches deployed per building rack, utilizing mixed 16G/32G/64G 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-C9148V-K9 ideal for carrier PoP edge deployments, terminating hundreds of 64G enterprise customer access circuits and high-speed core backbone trunks with logical VSAN multi-tenant isolation.
5. Legacy MDS 9148S / MDS 9148T SAN Hardware Refresh Upgrade
   Drop-in performance upgrade for aging 16G/32G MDS fixed fabric switches, fully backward compatible with existing 8G/16G/32G Fibre Channel SFP transceivers while unlocking native 64G 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 color-matched to PSUs)
• M91VX-PL12 12-port incremental software activation licenses to expand active FC port count
• SFP (8G/16G) / SFP+ (32G/64G) 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)