Cisco MDS 9718 (DS-C9718) Full Product Description

1. Short Sales Title

2. Official Product Overview & Lifecycle

Core Hardware Differentiators vs MDS 9710 / MDS 9706

1. Industry-leading maximum port density: 16 universal hot-swappable line/service module slots (MDS 9710 only 8 line slots, MDS 9706 only 4), max 768×32G FC ports fully loaded with sixteen 48-port DS-X9748-3072 32G line cards, unmatched single-chassis SAN scale for hyperscale data centersCisco.
2. Massive 48 Tbps full-duplex non-blocking chassis aggregate bandwidth (MDS 9710 only 24 Tbps, MDS 9706 only 12.3 Tbps), powered by six independent DS-X9718-FAB3 crossbar modules operating in active-active load-sharing modeCisco.
3. 26RU ultra-tall rack height (MDS 9710=14RU, MDS 9706=9RU), supports up to twelve 3000W Platinum redundant power supplies (12-way N+1 power redundancy; MDS 9710 max 8 PSUs, MDS 9706 only 4 PSUs) to sustain full 16×48-port 32G high-power SFP+ loadingCisco.
4. Identical three independent hot-swappable fan trays with multi-fan fault tolerance (survive up to two fan tray failures without thermal shutdown), oversized high-CFM airflow design for 16 full line card thermal dissipationCisco.
5. Dual redundant Supervisor-1E / Supervisor-4 fabric control modules (Sup-4 upgraded 8-core CPU, doubled memory, enhanced telemetry NPU, Secure Boot) with stateful failover, non-disruptive ISSU firmware upgrades; all MDS 9700 supervisors interchangeable across chassis, DS-C9718 supports highest-performance Sup-4 exclusively for large fabric scaleCisco.
6. Unified MDS 9700 Generation3 module compatibility: 48-port 32G FC, FCoE converged, DS-X9334 FCIP multi-protocol extension, SSM encryption/asynchronous replication service modules, fully interchangeable with MDS 9706/9710 line cards to reduce enterprise maintenance spare inventory costCisco.
7. Full native converged FCoE lossless forwarding with PFC/DCBX/VNTag, fully integrated into ASIC hardware offload; complete FICON mainframe hardware acceleration for IBM z Systems tape/disk consolidation, a mandatory feature for financial/mainframe enterprise deploymentsCisco.
8. Dedicated onboard NPU per line card for real-time streaming SAN telemetry, frame header inspection, low-latency FC-NVMe Gen2 processing, DMM non-disruptive data migration, IOA I/O acceleration, absent from all MDS 95xx legacy directors and smaller MDS 9706/9710 chassis due to limited ASIC resourcesCisco.
9. Fixed front-to-back single airflow design (only cold aisle intake variant offered, no hot aisle exhaust option for MDS 9718).

Core High-Availability Design

Model Suffix Breakdown

• DS-C: Cisco MDS storage director bare chassis part number prefix
• 9718: MDS 9700 flagship Generation3 SAN director series, total 18 internal front slots (16 universal line/service card slots + 2 dedicated supervisor/fabric slots) plus six rear crossbar fabric modules
• K9: Standard AC power SKU with full multilayer NX-OS enterprise/carrier feature license
• No dual airflow variant: MDS 9718 only front-to-back cold aisle airflow (Intake I standard, no Exhaust E chassis)

3. Chassis Slot & Hardware Layout Definition

Front Panel 18 Horizontal Slots (26RU 19-inch rack)

1. Slots 1–8, 11–16: Sixteen universal hot-swappable line/service module slots (32G FC switching cards, FCoE converged modules, DS-X9334 FCIP multi-protocol extension modules, SSM storage encryption/replication service modules)
2. Slots 17, 18: Dedicated redundant Supervisor-1E / Supervisor-4 fabric control module slots (Slot17 defaults active, Slot18 standby)

Rear Panel Redundant Subsystems

1. Six independent hot-swappable DS-X9718-FAB3 crossbar switching fabric modules (mandatory for full 48 Tbps non-blocking bandwidth)
2. Up to twelve independent hot-swappable 3000W power supply bays supporting AC or DC high-voltage power modules
3. Three separate hot-swappable multi-fan variable-speed fan trays for full chassis layered cooling

Out-of-Band Management Interfaces (each Supervisor module carries full management ports)

• RJ45 RS232 serial console port for local CLI access
• Mini USB dual local console port for laptop zero-cable administration
• Dual isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management ports (separate SAN analytics export dedicated interface)
• 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

Front Global Diagnostic LED Bank

Airflow Specification

Supported Transceivers & Pluggable Modules

1. Fibre Channel SFP+ transceivers (sold separately for all line card FC ports):
   • DS-SFP-FC16G-SW/LW: 16Gbps multimode/long-wave single-mode
   • DS-SFP-FC32G-SW/LW: 32Gbps multimode/long-wave single-mode with built-in FEC
   • Backward compatible with legacy 8G FC SFPs for existing storage array interoperation
2. FCoE / FCIP Ethernet SFP+ transceivers: 10G-SR/LR, 40G-SR4 for lossless FCoE and FCIP multi-protocol gateway functions
3. Supported pluggable line/service modules for Slots 1–8,11–16:
   • DS-X9648-1536K9: 48×16G FC high-density switching module
   • DS-X9748-3072K9: 48×32G FC maximum-density line card (16×48 = 768 total FC ports full chassis)
   • DS-X9334-K9 Multiprotocol Services Module: 24×FC SFP ports + 8×1/10G GE + 2×40G GE ports for FCIP / iSCSI WAN SAN extension gateway
   • SSM Storage Services Module: Inline tape/media encryption, asynchronous cross-fabric replication, SAN performance analytics
4. Supervisor module compatibility: Supervisor-1E Gen3 fabric module, Supervisor-4 upgraded fabric module (8-core CPU, 4GB RAM, native FCoE, built-in analytics NPU, Secure Boot)
5. Crossbar module compatibility: DS-X9718-FAB3 Generation3 crossbar fabric modules (six required for full chassis bandwidth)
6. Power supply compatibility: 3000W Platinum AC PEM modules (DS-PWR-3000AC), 3000W DC PEM telecom modules (DS-PWR-3000DC), non-interchangeable between AC/HV chassis variants

4. Hardware & Physical Specifications

Core SAN Switching & Routing Performance

• Single-chassis non-blocking fabric maximum aggregate bandwidth: 48 Tbps full-duplex system-wide bandwidthCisco
• Wire-speed frame forwarding rate: Up to 48 Bpps Fibre Channel frame switching at full 32G line rate
• Low-latency virtual output queuing (VOQ) shared packet buffer pool, up to 10000 buffer credits per port group for long-distance ISL trunk links
• 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 dynamic load balancing
• NPV/NPIV native hardware acceleration: Consolidate thousands of server host ports upstream to MDS core directors without core fabric control-plane overhead
• Native multi-protocol ASIC hardware offload: FC-NVMe Gen2 ultra-low-latency frame processing, FCoE lossless forwarding, FCoE PFC/DCBX/VNTag, FCIP write acceleration, tape pipelining, FCIP compression, DMM non-disruptive data migration, IOA I/O acceleration, onboard NPU real-time SAN telemetry streaming, hardware FEC for long-distance 32G links

Power & Cooling System

• Power supply bays: 12 hot-swappable redundant slots, each 3000W Platinum AC PSU fully powers complete chassis independently (N+1 failover protection)
• AC input voltage range: 100–240V AC (10% tolerance), 50/60Hz universal auto-ranging alternating current, 80 Plus Platinum high efficiency
• Fan trays: Three separate hot-swappable multi-fan assemblies; minimum two functional fan trays required to avoid thermal shutdown, up to two fan tray failures trigger SNMP fault alert without service interruption
• 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; critical thermal alarm threshold at 55°C
• Typical full-load power draw: 920W fully populated with sixteen 48-port 32G line cards + dual supervisor modules + six crossbar modules under maximum storage traffic load
• MTBF: 260,000 hours under standard data center and service provider PoP operating conditions

Physical & Environmental Parameters

• Rack form factor: 26 RU standard 19-inch horizontal rack mountCisco
• Dimensions (H × W × D): 114.9 cm × 43.9 cm × 88.9 cm (45.25 × 17.3 × 35 inches)
• Bare chassis weight: 136 kg (300 lbs) without power supplies/fan trays/line/crossbar modules; fully loaded maximum weight 226.8 kg (500 lbs) with twelve PSUs, three fan trays, six crossbar modules and sixteen 48-port line cards 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 per supervisor: RJ45 RS232 serial port + Mini USB console port
• Dual isolated 10/100/1000BASE-T out-of-band Ethernet management ports
• External USB flash storage for offline NX-OS firmware 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 7.x / 8.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 + Autozone automatic standalone fabric zoning
• Complete FICON protocol stack support for IBM mainframe disk and tape enterprise storage connectivity
• Inter-Switch Link (ISL) trunk PortChannel load balancing across mixed 16G/32G 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
• FC-NVMe Gen2 optimized frame handling for ultra-low-latency all-flash NVMe storage workloads
• FCoE lossless Ethernet convergence with PFC, DCBX, VNTag virtual machine storage I/O tracking
• Hardware FEC Forward Error Correction for reliable long-distance 32G FC ISL links

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 VSAN fabrics
• Complete carrier-grade MPLS service suite: MPLS LDP, VPLS, VPWS, EVPN-FC interoperability, MPLS VPN IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack
• FCIP tunnel hardware acceleration: lossless compression, write acceleration, tape pipelining for long-distance disaster recovery replication
• iSCSI multi-protocol gateway processing via DS-X9334 service modules 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 database workloads, all-flash NVMe storage, tape backup archives, and disaster recovery replication
• Dedicated high-priority traffic queue for low-latency real-time unified communications and enterprise 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 NDFC / 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-wide outages and analytics export
• External USB flash storage for offline NX-OS firmware image upgrades, running 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, onboard NPU streaming analytics export
• 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 9710 Mid-Large Director)

1. Up to twelve hot-swappable high-efficiency 3000W Platinum AC redundant power supplies (12-way N+1 redundant architecture; MDS 9710 only eight PSUs with lower total power capacity for full high-density line card loading)
2. Three redundant variable-speed hot-swappable fan trays with multi-fan fault tolerance (survive two fan tray failures without SAN outage, shared cooling architecture with MDS 9710 but oversized airflow for 16 line card full load)
3. Six independent active-active load-sharing crossbar fabric modules delivering 48 Tbps full non-blocking bandwidth (MDS 9710 only 24 Tbps total throughput, half MDS 9718 capacity)
4. Dual redundant Supervisor-1E / Supervisor-4 Gen3 fabric control modules with stateful failover, onboard analytics NPU, native 32G FC/FCoE hardware offload (Sup-4 offers upgraded CPU/memory for hyperscale fabric scale)
5. Sixteen universal line card expansion slots vs only eight on MDS 9710, supporting up to 768 total 32G FC ports (double MDS 9710 maximum port density)
6. Full OIR hot-swap support for all critical FRUs: crossbar modules, fan trays, power supplies, supervisors, line cards, SFP+ transceivers without chassis power cycle
7. Single fixed front-to-back cold aisle airflow design optimized for large hyperscale data center cold/hot aisle deployments
8. Modern NX-OS software stack with native EVPN, POAP, Autozone, VMID analytics, onboard Python 3 and streaming SAN telemetry analytics absent from legacy MDS 95xx firmware
9. Expanded VOQ buffer, TCAM and Flexible NetFlow scale optimized for hyperscale virtualized all-flash NVMe storage and large multi-tenant carrier PoP workloads
10. Limitation: Fixed massive 26RU chassis requiring dedicated full-height rack space, no additional line card expansion slots beyond sixteen built-in line card bays, no native 64G Fibre Channel generation hardware support

7. Typical Deployment Scenarios

1. Hyperscale Cloud Virtualized Data Center Core SAN Director
   Massive 26RU modular rack form factor deployed as campus central SAN core director; sixteen integrated pre-activated 32G FC line cards populate all line card slots for 768 total FC ports connecting distributed building MDS 9706/9710 edge switches, primary production all-flash NVMe storage arrays and massive blade server racks, dual redundant supervisors + six active-active crossbar modules provide zero-failover fabric control-plane and switching redundancy, VSAN segmentation isolates independent departmental production, test and backup storage fabrics for tens of thousands of virtual machines.
2. Multi-Building Enterprise Campus Core-Edge SAN Fabric
   Multiple DS-C9718 flagship directors deployed per hyperscale data center storage rack, utilizing mixed 16G/32G long-distance LW FC ISL trunk links to interconnect geographically distributed campus storage pods, dual crossbar fabric ensures zero throughput loss during crossbar module maintenance, built-in FCIP gateway modules provision asynchronous cross-site disaster recovery replication tunnels between primary and DR data centers.
3. Large Regional Mission-Critical Headquarters SAN
   Financial, healthcare and government headquarters storage deployments require complete 12-way redundant power + three-fan tray + dual supervisor + six-crossbar hardware redundancy to avoid site-wide catastrophic database and tape backup storage outages; integrated FICON mainframe support enables long-distance cross-site DR replication, while MPLS multi-tenant VSAN isolation features support mixed enterprise and agency storage workloads in a single flagship chassis.
4. Medium-to-Large 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-C9718 ideal for carrier PoP edge deployments, terminating hundreds of 32G 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, unused line card slots reserved for future growth in customer port count and encryption compliance service modules.
5. Legacy MDS 9509 / MDS 9710 SAN Hardware Refresh Migration Upgrade
   Drop-in performance upgrade for aging 8G/32G legacy MDS modular directors, fully backward compatible with existing 16G Fibre Channel SFP transceivers while unlocking ultra-high 768-port density, dual redundant external crossbar fabric, twelve-way redundant power supplies and modern NX-OS automation workflows.
6. Hyperscale Centralized Enterprise Tape Library Backup Fabric Core
   Deployed as dedicated backup SAN aggregation core director, utilizing multi-port FCIP PortChannel trunk links to primary production SAN fabrics via asynchronous off-site tape archive and disaster recovery replication workloads, with unused line card slots available for high-density host port expansion or SSM encryption/replication compliance service module additions as enterprise storage capacity expands.

8. Standard Package Contents (Bare Chassis DS-C9718 Base SKU)

Items Sold Separately (Not Included in Bare Chassis DS-C9718)

• Up to twelve 3000W Platinum AC hot-swappable redundant power supply units (DC telecom PSUs sold separately)
• Three matching hot-swappable variable-speed fan assemblies (front multi-fan cooling tray)
• Two redundant Supervisor-1E or Supervisor-4 fabric control modules (mandatory for chassis operation)
• Six DS-X9718-FAB3 crossbar fabric switching modules (mandatory for full chassis bandwidth operation)
• Optional MDS 9700 family pluggable line/service modules (48-port 32G FC switching module, DS-X9334 multi-protocol FCIP/iSCSI gateway module, SSM storage encryption/replication module)
• DS-SFP-FC16G/32G optical fiber transceivers for all base FC ports (backward compatible with legacy 8G FC SFPs)
• Optional IVR Inter-VSAN Routing multilayer software license, FCIP SAN Extension Enabler license, Mainframe FICON Enabler license, IOA I/O Acceleration license, DMM Data Migration Enabler license
• 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)