Is N9K still recommended to be used as unified data and SAN switch?

[SIMMN]

I have customer desparated to replace the 48P N5Ks which connects both compute as well as native FC SAN...But from what I can see, there are not many N9K models support native FC anymore...I guess I could recommend MDS but they would still need data switching which means they would have to separate the data and SAN switching function to two sets of devices...

Suggestions?

[marce1000]

  - Start from here https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/switches/switch-selector.html?guide=data_center#~select-switch
    and make further selections according to which models you want to browse.
               I myself prefer to keep networking data and SAN networking separated , 

 M.

[SIMMN]

I used that tool and I prefer the separation as well. Maybe that was the main reason Cisco stopped native FC support on N9Ks...

There are only N9K-C9336C-FX2-E, N9K-C93180YC-FX (EoS/EoL) and N9K-C93360YC-FX2 could be used for Data and FC from what I can tell. But each of them has quirks as proper N5K replacement...

[marce1000]

  - If you  talk about quirks then you must explain  or can explain  them   , the tool is useful to look for successors for storage networking related to the N5K's (indeed)

   M.

[SIMMN]

If the N5Ks were just being used for SAN, the replacements would be eaiser identifiable. But the N5Ks are used for both data and FC SAN.

[marce1000]

  - But since they are old  and need to be replaced (indeed) . then advice the customer to split ; one can use current  models  for networking (with the same purpose) by starting at the top or at  the datacenter section of the tool

 M.

[Jason Mooney]

The MDS platform has multiple advantages versus the N9K.  Being that the MDS is native fibre-channel it has better diagnosability, monitoring for performance impacting slowdrain, and not to mention non-disruptive upgrades.  If you can architect a solution around a pair of small 16-Port Cisco MDS 9132T's your farther ahead.