Cisco MDS 9250i (DS-C9250i-K9) Full Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview

1. DS-C9250I-K9 (Intake / I): Front-to-back cold aisle airflow (air intake port panel, exhaust rear PSU side)
2. DS-C9250E-K9 (Exhaust / E): Back-to-front hot aisle airflow (air intake rear PSU panel, exhaust front port panel)
   Separate high-voltage DC telecom variant DS-C9250i-HV-K9 sold independently; all power supplies and fan modules are color-coded and non-interchangeable between AC/HV and I/E airflow SKUsCisco.

Core Hardware Differentiators vs Earlier MDS 9222i-K9 (4G model)

1. Native 16Gbps Fibre Channel SFP+ ports (backward compatible with 2/4/8/16G), full line-rate dedicated bandwidth per FC port; MDS 9222i limited to maximum 4G FC hardware.
2. Unified converged port mix: 40×16G FC + 8×10G FCoE + 2×1/10G IP storage ports (total 50 fixed ports), MDS 9222i only 18 FC + 4×1G GE with no native FCoE support.
3. Reworked port licensing baseline: Ships with30 active ports factory default(20 FC + 8 FCoE + 2 FCIP), expandable via single M9250IP20 20-port incremental license to unlock full 40 FC ports without hardware replacement; MDS 9222i used fixed chassis port count with separate expansion slots.
4. Massive 1.6 Tbps single-chassis non-blocking fabric capacity, quadrupling MDS 9222i’s 1.152 Tbps bandwidth, built for NVMe flash and multi-ISL trunk high-throughput workloads.
5. Four independent hot-swappable fan modules with multi-fan fault tolerance (survive up to two fan failures without thermal shutdown), MDS 9222i only dual fan trays with limited resilience.
6. Dedicated IOA I/O acceleration ASIC hardware offload for FCIP write/tape pipelining and compression, plus native DMM non-disruptive data migration engine absent from MDS 9222i.
7. Native FCoE lossless Ethernet convergence hardware acceleration for unified LAN/SAN rack consolidation, a feature entirely missing from FC-only MDS 9200 predecessors.
8. Dual bidirectional airflow hardware options fully compatible with modern cold/hot aisle data center rack containment architectures.
9. Heavy-duty 300W high-efficiency redundant AC power supplies optimized for full 50-port populated 16G/FCoE transceiver power draw, vs lower-wattage PSUs on older MDS 92xxi models.

Core High-Availability Design

Model Suffix Breakdown

• DS-C: Cisco MDS storage switch part number prefix
• 9250i: MDS 9200-i modern converged 16G fabric series, total 50 fixed mixed FC/FCoE/IP gateway ports, integrated multiservice hardware
• 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)
• i = Integrated multiservice IP SAN extension + FCoE convergence hardware built into base supervisor chassis (unique identifier separating from pure FC MDS 9200 models)

3. Chassis Port & Hardware Layout Definition

1. Front Fixed Integrated Ports (hardwired to integrated supervisor backplane, no expansion slot)
   • FC Ports 1–40: Hot-swappable SFP+ slots, autosensing 2/4/8/16 Gbps Fibre Channel, every port full non-blocking line-rate bandwidth (mixed host, storage, ISL trunk use)
   • FCoE Ports FE1–FE8: Eight dedicated fixed SFP+ 10Gbps lossless Ethernet ports for FCoE unified LAN/SAN convergence
   • IP Storage Ports IP1–IP2: Two fixed SFP+ 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet ports for native FCIP WAN SAN extension and iSCSI IP storage gateway functions (SAN Extension license enabled base by default)Cisco
   • Factory default active port set: 20 FC + 8 FCoE + 2 FCIP (30 total licensed ports)
   • Expand via M9250IP20 single 20-port software license to unlock remaining 20 FC ports for full 50-port operation
2. Out-of-Band Management Interfaces
   • RJ45 RS232 serial console port for local CLI access
   • Mini USB dual console port for laptop zero-cable administration
   • Isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management port for remote SSH/Telnet/SNMP administration
   • 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, FC port, FCoE port, IP port, link activity, hardware fault alarm, UID blue locator beacon indicator
4. Rear Compartment Layout: Two independent hot-swappable 300W AC power supply bays supporting 1+1 redundant power operation
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 compartment (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 Hardware

1. Fibre Channel SFP+ transceivers (sold separately):
   • DS-SFP-FC16G-SW: 16Gbps short-wave multimode, 500m transmission reach
   • DS-SFP-FC16G-LW: 16Gbps long-wave single-mode, 10km transmission reach
   • Backward compatible with legacy 8G / 4G / 2G FC SFPs for existing storage array interoperation
2. FCoE / IP Ethernet SFP+ transceivers: 10G-SR, 10G-LR, 1/10G copper RJ45 SFPs for FCoE and FCIP/iSCSI gateway ports
3. Power supply compatibility: DS-C9250-300AC 300W Platinum AC PSUs exclusive to DS-C9250i-K9; high-voltage DC 300W PSUs manufactured for DS-C9250i-HV-K9 telecom variant, airflow-specific PSUs cannot be mixed between I/E chassis
4. No removable expansion module slot; all ports and services integrated on base chassis backplane

4. Hardware & Physical Specifications

Core SAN Switching & Routing Performance

• Single-chassis non-blocking fabric maximum aggregate bandwidth: 1.6 Tbps full-duplex system-wide bandwidth
• Wire-speed frame forwarding rate: Up to 1.6 Bpps Fibre Channel frame switching at full 16G line rate
• Low-latency virtual output queuing (VOQ) shared packet buffer pool with dedicated buffer credit allocation for NVMe flash, OLTP database and multi-tenant VPN burst I/O
• FC N_Port address table capacity: 1,048,576 unique host identifiers, optimized for dense blade server rack deployments
• Maximum isolated VSAN virtual fabrics: 4094
• Maximum active zone sets: 256 zone sets, up to 2000 individual zone entries per VSAN
• Jumbo FC frame MTU support: Up to 9000 bytes
• Supported FC port operating modes: F (Fabric host), FL (Arbitrated Loop), TL (Extended Loop), E (ISL inter-switch trunk), TE (Extended ISL), NP (NPV edge host aggregation)
• Link aggregation: PortChannel multi-port FC ISL trunk bundling, maximum 16 FC ports per logical bundle with load balancing
• NPV/NPIV native feature: Consolidate thousands of server host ports upstream to MDS core directors without core fabric control-plane overhead
• Slow drain detection hardware ASIC: Automatically isolate slow storage targets to prevent fabric-wide buffer credit starvation storms
• Native converged hardware offload: FCoE lossless forwarding, FCIP write acceleration, tape pipelining, FCIP compression, IOA I/O acceleration, DMM non-disruptive data migration engine

Power & Cooling System

• Power supply bays: 2 hot-swappable redundant slots, each 300W Platinum AC PSU fully powers complete chassis independently (1+1 N+1 failover protection)
• AC input voltage range: 100–240V 50/60Hz universal auto-ranging alternating current, 80 Plus Platinum high efficiency
• Fan modules: Four separate hot-swappable multi-fan assemblies; minimum two functional fan modules required to avoid thermal shutdown, up to two fan module failures tolerated with four-fan full redundancy
• Real-time telemetry monitoring: Fan rotational speed, internal chassis ambient temperature, PSU input/output voltage, SFP+ optical transmit power, port error counters and module fault logging via console syslog and SNMP v1/v2c/v3 traps; major thermal alarm threshold at 55°C
• Typical full-load power draw: 280W fully populated with 40×16G FC + 8×10G FCoE + 2×10G IP SFP+ transceivers under maximum storage traffic load
• MTBF: 290,000 hours under standard data center and service provider PoP operating conditions

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Rack form factor: 2 RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack mount
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 8.89 cm × 44.45 cm × 54.61 cm (3.5 × 17.5 × 21.5 inches)
• Bare chassis weight: 11.2 kg (24.7 lbs) without power supplies/fan modules; fully loaded maximum weight 15.8 kg (34.8 lbs) with dual PSUs and four populated fan trays installed
• Operating ambient 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 per regional environmental regulations, FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validated

Control Plane 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 providing real-time hardware health visualization

5. Full NX-OS Multilayer Feature Set (Cisco NX-OS MDS Release 6.2 / 7.x / 9.x Universal Image)

Layer 2 Fibre Channel & Converged FCoE Fabric Services

• VSAN Virtual Storage Area Network: Logical fabric segmentation for multi-application / multi-tenant storage environment isolation
• Dual zoning models: Hard port zoning and soft WWN Smart Zoning for granular host-storage access control
• Complete FICON protocol stack support for IBM mainframe disk and tape enterprise storage connectivity
• Inter-Switch Link (ISL) trunk PortChannel load balancing across mixed 8G/16G FC port speeds (max 16-port bundles)
• DTP Fibre Channel trunk negotiation protocol, FSPF dynamic fabric domain ID routing
• Local SPAN, RSPAN, ESPAN enhanced remote SAN traffic mirroring for multi-session performance troubleshooting
• Per-port broadcast/multicast storm suppression to eliminate fabric-wide RSCN broadcast outages
• NPV N_Port Virtualizer edge switch mode for large-scale core-edge enterprise SAN architecture deployment
• 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
• FCoE lossless Ethernet convergence with Priority Flow Control (PFC), DCBX, VNTag virtual machine storage I/O tracking

Multilayer Storage Routing & Multi-Protocol Features

• FSPF Fibre Channel Shortest Path First dynamic fabric routing for multi-switch distributed SAN topologies
• PIM-SM IP multicast for cross-fabric asynchronous synchronous backup replication traffic
• Static FC route configuration for controlled inter-VSAN storage data movement
• Licensed IVR Inter-VSAN Routing feature for secure data transfer between isolated VSANs
• Complete carrier-grade MPLS service suite: MPLS LDP, VPLS, VPWS, EVPN-FC interoperability, MPLS VPN IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack
• FCIP tunnel hardware acceleration: write acceleration, tape pipelining, lossless compression for long-distance WAN disaster recovery replication
• iSCSI multi-protocol gateway processing for IP-attached server consolidation

Advanced SAN QoS & Traffic Prioritization

• Four hardware priority queues per Fibre Channel / FCoE port for tiered classification of storage I/O traffic
• Ingress frame policing and egress bandwidth shaping to throttle low-priority tape backup and replication streams
• Pre-built QoS templates for production OLTP, NVMe flash storage, tape backup, and disaster recovery replication workloads
• Dedicated high-priority traffic 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 physical server/storage device attachment
• RBAC Role-Based Access Control granular CLI user privilege partitioning, integrated with Cisco ISE
• SSHv2 encrypted remote CLI management, SNMPv3 secure monitoring, AES encrypted startup configuration files
• DH-CHAP mutual bidirectional authentication for ISL inter-switch link fabric authentication
• Port lockdown, VSAN read-only access permissions, complete 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
• Isolated out-of-band Ethernet management port for offline device access during fabric-wide 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 transmit power diagnostics
• Event notification via email, syslog and SNMP traps for real-time fabric fault alerting
• GOLD Generic Online Diagnostics continuous hardware health validation without traffic interruption
• Onboard Python 3 interpreter + NX-API REST interfaces for custom SAN automation scripts

6. High Availability Capabilities (Core Differentiators vs MDS 9222i-K9 4G Model)

1. Dual hot-swappable high-efficiency 300W Platinum AC redundant power supplies (1+1 power failover protection, stable under fully populated 50-port mixed FC/FCoE/IP load)
2. Four redundant variable-speed hot-swappable fan modules with multi-fan fault tolerance (survive two fan failures without SAN outage; MDS 9222i only dual fan trays limited fault resilience)
3. Full OIR Online Insertion and Removal support for fan tray, power supplies and SFP+ transceivers; live FRU replacement without chassis power cycle or SAN traffic drop
4. Native 16G full non-blocking per-port Fibre Channel bandwidth (MDS 9222i limited to maximum 4G line rate)
5. Integrated native FCoE convergence hardware (MDS 9222i no FCoE support whatsoever)
6. Pay-as-you-grow 20-port incremental licensing starting from 30 pre-activated base ports up to full 50 ports, reduced upfront licensing cost vs fixed port-count older MDS 92xxi switches
7. Massive 1.6 Tbps single-chassis non-blocking fabric capacity, doubling MDS 9222i’s 1.152 Tbps bandwidth limit
8. Modern NX-OS software stack with native EVPN, POAP, onboard Python 3 and REST API automation absent from MDS 9222i legacy firmware
9. Expanded VOQ buffer, TCAM and DMM/IOA acceleration hardware optimized for NVMe flash and MPLS multi-tenant carrier PoP deployments
10. Dual bidirectional airflow hardware options fully compatible with modern cold/hot aisle data center rack containment architectures
11. Limitation: Fixed compact 2RU chassis with no modular port card expansion capability like MDS 9500 directors, no native 32G/64G Fibre Channel generation hardware support

7. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Medium Virtualized Converged Data Center Rack-Scale Edge SAN Switch
   Compact 2RU rack form factor fits standard server edge rack positions; scalable pay-as-you-grow 20-port licensing allows customers to start with 30 pre-activated ports and expand to full 50 as virtualization and 16G NVMe flash storage capacity grows, consolidating hundreds of virtual machine hosts, all-flash arrays and FCoE converged LAN/SAN workloads in leaf-spine SAN architectures.
2. Large Multi-Building Enterprise Campus Core-Edge SAN Fabric
   Multiple DS-C9250i-K9 edge switches deployed per building rack, utilizing mixed 16G FC and 10G FCIP trunk links to central MDS 9700 director core, 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 + four-fan hardware redundancy to avoid site-wide catastrophic database and tape backup storage outages; integrates FICON mainframe DR replication, MPLS multi-tenant VSAN isolation and high-density blade server rack consolidation in a space-efficient 2RU chassis.
4. Medium Service Provider Multi-Tenant PoP Edge Storage Gateway
   Native full MPLS/VPLS/EVPN carrier-grade feature set and massive FC address table scale make DS-C9250i-K9 ideal for carrier PoP edge deployments, terminating hundreds of 16G enterprise customer access circuits and high-speed multi-port ISL core backbone trunks with logical VSAN multi-tenant isolation to separate independent customer storage fabrics.
5. Legacy MDS 9222i / MDS 9148 4G/8G SAN Hardware Refresh Upgrade
   Drop-in performance upgrade for aging 4G/8G MDS multiservice fixed fabric switches, fully backward compatible with existing 4G/8G Fibre Channel SFP transceivers while unlocking native 16G line-rate bandwidth, integrated FCoE convergence, four-fan fault tolerance, DMM/IOA storage acceleration and modern NX-OS automation workflows.

8. Standard Package Contents

Items Sold Separately (Not Included)

• Dual 300W 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 PSU SKU)
• M9250IP20 20-port incremental software activation licenses to unlock remaining 20 FC ports
• SFP (8G) / SFP+ (16G FC / 10G FCoE / 10G IP) optical fiber transceivers for all chassis ports
• Optional IVR Inter-VSAN Routing multilayer software license
• Optional IOA I/O Acceleration and DMM Data Migration advanced service licenses
• RS232 serial console rollover cable, mini USB console cable
• USB flash memory sticks for NX-OS image and configuration storage
• Fibre channel patch cords, copper Ethernet patch cords, cable management accessories, rack cable guides

Short Commercial Catalog Version (For Quotation & Datasheet Use)