The Cisco^® MDS 9718 Multilayer Director (Figure 1) has the industry's highest port density for a SAN director, with 768 line-rate 32-Gbps Fibre Channel ports. The Cisco^® MDS 9718 supports 768 line-rate 32-Gbps Fibre Channel ports. This new 32-Gbps line card couples the next-generation port ASICs with a fully dedicated Network Processing Unit designed to complete analytics calculations in real time on the 32-Gbps line card. The MDS 9718 also supports the Cisco 24-port 40-Gbps Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) line card and Cisco MDS 9000 24/10-Port SAN Extension Module. It is designed for deployment in midsize to large enterprises. The MDS 9718 enables SAN consolidation and collapsed-core solutions for large enterprises, thereby reducing the number of managed switches and leading to easy-to-manage solutions, providing more front-panel ports by reducing the number of ports used on Inter-Switch Links (ISLs), and offering room for future growth.

The MDS 9718 addresses the stringent storage requirements for large virtualized data centers. As a director-class SAN switch, the MDS 9718 uses the same operating system and management interface as other Cisco data center switches. It brings intelligent capabilities to a high-performance, protocol-independent switch fabric. You gain uncompromising availability, security, and scalability; simplified management; and the capability to flexibly integrate new technologies. The MDS 9718 lets you transparently deploy unified fabrics with Fibre Channel and FCoE connectivity with a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).