is there any efficient SAN Extension solution in Cisco word?

[Amir.csco]

Hi,

I was looking for a solution to expand SAN storages and connect two SAN swithes located in different data center that are in separate physical location to each other,find some solution in Cisco documents such as FCIP and iSCSI but unfortunately there is not any configuration example or case study about using this technologies for extending SAN traffic through WAN Links between different data centers,i need to know if anybody had a successful experience on situation like this!!

[Walter Dey · Accepted solution]

Hi Amir

The solution really depends on your situation; eg.

- distance between sites

- dark fibre available

- bandwith requirement

- redundancy requirement

The solution could be CWDM, DWDM over dark fibre (usually without active optical amplifiers up to 80 +- 10 km, and speeds typical 8G FC); BB (Buffer Buffer) credit per port is a key factor

FCIP is a nice solution, going almost unlimited distance; typical 1 or 10G Ethernet connectivity.

iSCSI; no, this is not a SAN extension technology.

The flagship for FCIP is Cisco MDS 9250i Multiservice Fabric Switch:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/storage-networking/mds-9250i-multiservice-fabric-switch/data_sheet_c78-727493.html

Some older doc's explaining FCIP setup:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/storage-networking/fiber-channel/47100-basic-fcip-mds.html

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/mds9000/sw/5_0/configuration/guides/ipsvc/nxos/ipsvc/cfcip.pdf

http://www.ccierants.com/2013/06/ccie-dc-advanced-fcip.html

[Amir.csco]

Thanks in advanced,

i need to know if MDS 9100 series can support FCIP?

about MDS 9200 series is required to use additional License or hardware module to activate this feature?

[Walter Dey]

MDS 91xx doesn't support FCIP

MDS 9250i: The Cisco SAN Extension over IP application package license is enabled as standard on the two fixed 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet IP storage services ports, enabling features such as Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) and compression on the switch without the need for additional licenses.

Therefore no additional modules / licenses !