Dueling

Tiered storage

directors
DR and dedupe

Director-class switches have been used to

maintain performance in large storage

f
networks for years, but soon they’ll
Dueling directors

act as the hubs that unify

data center networks.

By Jacob Gsoedl

IBRE CHANNEL (FC) as a technology has been relatively static over the
past 10 years, and FC switch innovation has been incremental—from
bandwidth support and additional features to increased resilience
Self-healing storage

and availability—culminating in the high-end FC director platform.

Aside from a few failed incursions by vendors like QLogic Corp. and
others, Brocade Communications Systems Inc. and Cisco Systems
Inc. now almost exclusively own the high-end Fibre Channel switch
and director market. With their top-of-the-line platforms (the Bro-
cade DCX Backbone and Cisco’s MDS 9500 Multilayer Director Se-
ries), they duel for customers who require a combination of high FC
performance and high availability. Features and suitability for exist-
ing infrastructure have typically been the primary director selection
Adapting to change

criteria. Enhancements related to Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE),

as well as the convergence of FC and Ethernet into a unified data
center protocol, have added roadmaps and vendor strategies as
relevant purchasing considerations. Protecting the new investment
and ensuring its future are of paramount importance considering
how profoundly storage-area networks (SANs) and data centers will
be transformed.

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The Brocade DCX Backbone and Cisco MDS 9500 Series have much
in common. They’re both chassis based and can be scaled by adding or
changing hot-swappable line cards. With all components redundant and
hot-swappable (blades, fans, power supplies), they present no single point
of failure. From 1 Gbps/2 Gbps /4 Gbps /8 Gbps Fibre Channel to FICON,
FC over Internet Protocol (FCIP) and Internet Protocol over FC (IPFC), and
connectivity options for iSCSI (DCX via an iSCSI gateway and the MDS
DR and dedupe

natively), they support all relevant storage networking protocols. With

Brocade’s Fabric Application Plat-
form option and the Cisco MDS
9000 Storage Services Module “With the support of Virtual
(SSM), both vendors can turn their Fabrics, Brocade eliminated
switches into intelligent app plat-
forms for third-party services, one of the competitive
such as EMC Corp.’s Invista for advantages Cisco had
fabric-based storage virtualization
and EMC RecoverPoint for fabric- with VSANs.”
Dueling directors

based data protection. By way of —Bob Passmore,

the Brocade Data Center Fabric research vice president, Gartner Inc.
Manager (DCFM) and Cisco Data
Center Network Manager (DCNM), both provide commensurate manage-
ment applications to provision and proactively manage devices across
multiple fabrics. Both vendors also support N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV)
to simplify connectivity, management and monitoring of proliferating
virtual server environments. In addition, Cisco’s ability to create com-
pletely isolated fabric topologies via its virtual SAN (VSAN) technology
has been matched by Brocade’s new Virtual Fabrics feature, which
Self-healing storage

enables organizations to create logical groups of separately managed

devices, ports and switches within a physical SAN.
“With the support of Virtual Fabrics, Brocade eliminated one of the
competitive advantages Cisco had with VSANs,“ said Bob Passmore,
research vice president at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc. Notwith-
standing a long list of commonalities, Brocade and Cisco differ in some
key areas and features, as well as in product strategy.

PRODUCT OVERVIEW
In an attempt to establish a product category that resides above tradi-
tional directors, Brocade doesn’t categorize its DCX Backbone as a
Adapting to change

director-class product. However, with four times the chassis bandwidth,

significant energy efficiency and several feature enhancements, the DCX
Backbone can be viewed as a “green” Brocade 48000 Director on steroids.
Among the DCX Backbone enhancements are inter-chassis links (ICL)
that allow cascading two DCX Backbone switches via a 512 Gbps pipe,
integrated Fibre Channel routing, fabric-based encryption, and the sepa-
ration of control processor and core switching blades. Unlike the 48000
Director and the Cisco MDS 9500 Series, the DCX Backbone doesn’t support

20 Storage June 2009

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Tiered storage

iSCSI natively and depends on external iSCSI gateways to interface with

iSCSI SANs.
The DCX Backbone is available in two modular form factors. Built
for large enterprise networks, the 14U Brocade DCX Backbone has eight
vertical blade slots to provide up to 384 FC ports using Brocade-branded
4 Gbps or 8 Gbps small form-factor pluggables (SFPs). Built for midsized
networks, the 8U Brocade DCX-4S Backbone has four horizontal blade
DR and dedupe

slots to provide up to 192 Fibre Channel ports. Additionally, each chassis

has two slots for redundant control processor blades and two more slots
for redundant core switching blades that move traffic between blades.
With the Cisco MDS 9100 Series rack-mountable fabric switches at
the low end and the midrange MDS 9200 Series—which provides MDS
9500-equivalent features at a smaller form factor and lower cost by
sacrificing redundancy and scalability—the MDS 9500 director family
tops Cisco’s coherent FC switch product line. Cisco offers three MDS
9500 models: The MDS 9513, supporting a record 512 8 Gbps FC ports,
with a total of nine slots for line cards and two slots for redundant
Dueling directors

supervisor modules, is targeted at enterprise networks with high port

count requirements. For smaller networks and as edge devices, Cisco
offers the MDS 9509 featuring nine slots, and the MDS 9506 with six slots.
Introduced by Cisco in 2002, the MDS 9500 is on track to follow the
Catalyst 6500 Ethernet switch family in prolonging its life toward a
decade, displaying longevity that’s rare in the fast moving high-tech arena
where assets usually depreciate in three to five years. “MDS 9506 and
9509 switches that shipped in 2002 still support 8 Gbps FC and will support
FCoE,” confirmed Paolo Perazzo, senior product line manager, Cisco’s Data
Center Switching Technology Group. In contrast, during the same period,
Self-healing storage

Brocade has brought five different director platforms (12000, SilkWorm

FEATURE COMPARISON
BROCADE DCX BACKBONE CISCO SYSTEMS INC. MDS 9500
Models *DCX Backbone (eight port blades) *MDS 9513 (11 port blades)
*DCX-4S Backbone (four port blades) *MDS 9509 (seven port blades)
*MDS 9506 (four port blades)
Maximum port count 384 512
Adapting to change

Bandwidth per slot 256 Gbps 96 Gbps

Biggest benefit Fastest Fibre Channel (FC) director on the High degree of investment protection, long
market. Significant lead in the total number product lifecycle and coherent product line
of FC ports sold. that uses the same NX-OS operating system
Fibre Channel over Will be available once the standard is Available now via the Nexus 5000 switch;
Ethernet (FCoE) support ratified for the MDS 9500, Nexus 2000 and Nexus
7000, it will be released on standard
ratification

21 Storage June 2009

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THE HIGH COST

OF HIGH-END SWITCHES
24000, 48000, DCX Backbone and
McData i10K) to market. PLATFORM PRICE
“Brocade is a smaller but very Brocade DCX Backbone with eight $628,000
48-port 8 Gbps blades and full redundant
innovative company with shorter configuration
product lifecycles, partnering with Cisco MDS 9513 with eight 48-port $593,000
best-of-breed vendors. Cisco, on the 8 Gbps blades and full redundant
other hand, has a record of designing configuration
DR and dedupe

architectures that last for many Brocade DCX-4S with four 48-port $328,000
8 Gbps blades and full redundant
years,” noted Bob Laliberte, an configuration
analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group Cisco MDS 9506 with four 48-port 8 Gbps $320,000
(ESG) in Milford, Mass. blades and full redundant configuration
A case in point is the DCX Back- (List prices provided by Brocade/Cisco reseller)
bone. “The main difference between
the 48000 and DCX is the separation
and rearchitecture of the core switching and control processor blades
into separate blades, which required a new chassis design,” said Bill
Dunmire, senior product marketing manager at Brocade.
Dueling directors

COMPARING ARCHITECTURES
The Brocade DCX Backbone is based on a shared memory architecture
where data moves from switching ASIC to switching ASIC along multiple
internal ISLs that make up the path from an ingress port to an egress
port. To load balance between these inter-ASIC links within the switch,
the DCX Backbone relies on either exchange- or port-based routing.
“Besides fewer components on blades, which reduces the likelihood of
failure, in a shared memory architecture ASICs on the core switching
blades talk to ASICs on port blades using the same protocol, minimizing
Self-healing storage

protocol overhead,” Dunmire explained.

In comparison, the Cisco MDS 9500 leverages a crossbar architecture
where frame forwarding is directly performed in ASICs on the line cards.
The crossbar manages forwarding of packages, and a central arbiter
ensures fairness and prioritization. While the MDS 9506 and MDS 9509
provide the fabric switching module and central arbiter on the supervisor
blade, the MDS 9513 uses a separate pair of switching modules located
in the back of the MDS 9513 chassis. “Unlike a shared memory architecture
where traffic moves across internal switching ASICs along varying
paths, resulting in varying latencies, in a crossbar architecture the
latency between ports is consistent across all ports within the switch,”
Adapting to change

said Omar Sultan, solution manager, data center switching, data center
solutions at Cisco.
Even though each vendor claims its architecture is superior, they
each have their pros and cons. With the exception of a few vendor
specific peculiarities, both platforms can be used to power the most
mission-critical and largest SANs with comparable results and user
experience; this is substantiated by Brocade and Cisco splitting the
director market almost evenly. “The two products work very well and

22 Storage June 2009

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Tiered storage

by having competition, they’re pushing new features and, in the long

term, bring down the price,” ESG’s Laliberte said.
Nevertheless, there are noticeable differences between the two plat-
forms. The DCX Backbone supports local switching, which allows traffic
between ports on the same blade to be directly switched instead of
having to go through the core switching module; this means lower latency
for devices connected to the same blade and improved scalability by
DR and dedupe

reducing the amount of traffic that has to pass through the core switching
blades. Although Cisco rebuffs the local switching benefit, emphasizing
bigger latency variances as a result of local switching, support for local
switching in its latest Nexus platform suggests that the lack of local
switching support in the MDS 9500 is a disadvantage.
In addition to reliability, performance and throughput are the most
relevant attributes of a director platform. The Brocade DCX Backbone
currently wins the raw throughput comparison with 256 Gbps through-
put per slot vs. 96 Gbps for the Cisco MDS 9500. When combined with
local switching, it can concurrently
Dueling directors

operate more ports at full 8 Gbps

utilization than the MDS 9500, as
In addition to reliability,
verified by a February 2009 Mier- performance and through-
com lab test (Report 090115B). As a
result, the MDS 9500 depends to a put are the most relevant
greater degree on oversubscription attributes of a director
than the DCX Backbone. In practi-
cal SAN reality, however, not all platform.
ports will operate at full 8 Gbps
rate, and the use of oversubscription combined with traffic prioritization
Self-healing storage

and QoS makes the throughput difference less significant. In the past,
increases in port and chassis throughput benefited mostly ISLs and, to
a lesser degree, servers; but now the proliferation of virtual server envi-
ronments definitely makes bandwidth capacity more relevant. “Server
virtualization is a game changer, making oversubscription more prob-
lematic because physical servers running many virtual machines are
more likely to fully utilize a SAN link,” Gartner’s Passmore said. Cisco
confirmed that it’s working on a next-generation switch fabric module
that will match the DCX’s 256 Gbps slot throughput; existing customers
will be able to upgrade by simply replacing the existing switch fabric
module. “Replacing the switch fabric module costs an order of magnitude
Adapting to change

less than a forklift upgrade,” noted Bill Marozas, business development

manager, Cisco Data Center Solutions.
Despite each vendor’s claim that its platform requires less SAN archi-
tecting, each director platform has idiosyncrasies a SAN designer needs
to take into consideration to ensure optimal performance. In the case
of the MDS 9500, the SAN design effort will likely be related to managing
oversubscription and traffic prioritization. Correspondingly, the DCX

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Backbone requires SAN architects to take latency variances between

different ports within the same chassis into account, as well as its use
of port- and exchange-based routing to load balance inter-ASIC links.
While both Brocade and Cisco support port- and exchange-based routing
over external ISL links, Brocade’s use of these protocols inside the switch
has been somewhat controversial. Customers need to make a choice be-
tween one of two routing modes; despite repudiation by Brocade, bench-
DR and dedupe

marks like the December 2008 Miercom report (Report 081215B) have
shown slower performance if the switch is used with port-based routing
instead of the default exchange-based routing; and some array vendors
advise their customers to stay away from the DCX’s default exchange-
based routing for some of their arrays.
“HP does not typically make specific recommendations regarding
switch routing, but we recommend using port-based routing with the
StorageWorks Continuous Access EVA solution since exchange-based
routing doesn’t guarantee in-order frame delivery all the time across
exchanges,” said Kyle Fitze, marketing director for the StorageWorks
Dueling directors

Storage Platforms Division at Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co. Conversely, EMC

and NetApp confirmed that all of their arrays work flawlessly using the
DCX default exchange-based routing mode.

FCoE AND CEE/DCE

Compelled by the prevalence of Ethernet and its enhancements, and the
success and simplicity of iSCSI, Brocade and Cisco have embarked on
bringing Ethernet into the well-guarded FC domain via Fibre Channel
over Ethernet. FCoE is a T11 standard expected to be ratified later in the
year. It uses Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE)—Cisco calls it Data
Self-healing storage

Center Ethernet (DCE)—as the physical network transport to deliver Fibre

Channel payloads. However, unlike its Ethernet brethren, it’s lossless and
appears as native Fibre Channel to the operating system and apps. Unlike
iSCSI, it’s not routable and is designed as a low-latency, high-performance
Layer 2 data center protocol.
The value proposition of FCoE and converged Ethernet is lower infra-
structure cost realized by simplifying cabling and reducing the number
of adapters from two host bus adapters (HBAs) and two network inter-
face cards (NICs) to two redundant Converged Network Adapters (CNAs)
through which the converged local-area network (LAN) and FC traffic
traverses. Instead of connecting two NICs to an Ethernet switch and
Adapting to change

two HBAs to a Fibre Channel switch, the two CNAs terminate into a
CEE/DCE-capable switch that delivers Ethernet traffic to the LAN and FC
traffic to the SAN. Although FCoE and CEE/DCE are expected to eventually
be used from core to edge, its initial use is primarily at the access layer
to connect servers to CEE/DCE-capable switches.
Both Brocade and Cisco are committed to FCoE, but with different
strategies. Brocade won’t ship Converged Enhanced Ethernet products
until the standard is ratified; at that point, Brocade will support FCoE and

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CEE in its DCX Backbone via new blades. Older Brocade Fibre Channel
products, such as the 48000 Director, will connect through the DCX Back-
bone or a new top-of-rack switch to interface with CEE components.
With the Nexus 5000 Series top-of-rack switch, Cisco is the first
vendor to offer a pre-standard FCoE product. For the MDS 9500 director
family, as well as the Nexus 2000 Series Fabric Extenders and Nexus
7000 Series switches, DCE and FCoE support won’t be available until
DR and dedupe

standard ratification, similar to Brocade’s plans.

Overall, Cisco has a more coherent product strategy to support a
unified data center protocol and has been working on it for the past
five years. With the Nexus 7000 core switch and its formidable 15 Tbps
planned throughput designed to support 100 Gbps Ethernet, its unified
NX-OS operating system that’s used by both the MDS 9000 family and
the new Nexus platform, and its Data Center 3.0 initiative to unify com-
puting systems, Cisco is amazingly ready for the battle for the unified
data center. On the other hand, with the recent acquisition of Foundry
Networks Inc., Brocade isn’t standing still and, despite integration chal-
Dueling directors

lenges, a legion of loyal Brocade and Foundry customers are likely to

side with Brocade. Even though the battle has begun, broad adoption
of CEE isn’t expected until late 2010. “With the exception of some early
adopters, broader adoption of CEE won’t happen until 18 to 24 months
from now,” said Greg Schulz, founder and senior analyst at StorageIO
Group in Stillwater, Minn.

MAKING A CHOICE
The most important director
With much in common, including selection criteria: which
pricing (see “The high cost of
platform fits best into your
Self-healing storage

high-end switches,” p. 22), the

most important director selec- existing infrastructure and
tion criteria are which platform
fits best into your existing infra- which vendor’s strategy
structure and which vendor’s aligns more closely with
strategy aligns more closely with
your roadmap. your roadmap.
“We chose Brocade directors
mainly because we already had McData and Brocade departmental
switches and our staff was familiar with managing them. The DCX
performance was icing on the cake,” said Michael Kilmer, primary
Adapting to change

storage administrator at Daktronics Inc., a leading manufacturer of

large format display systems in Brookings, S.D.
“The fact that we are an all-Cisco shop as well as the VSAN feature were
the main reasons we went with the MDS 9500 platform,” explained Colleen
Rhode, systems analyst at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C.
For Keith E. Moore, director of technology services at Bellevue, Wash.-
based Applied Discovery Inc., a division of LexisNexis, scalability and
features were the decisive factors for selecting Brocade. “One of the

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Tiered storage

reasons Applied Discovery chose Brocade is that Brocade is known to

handle heavy traffic while sustaining wire speed. Our Cisco FC network
consistently had performance issues under heavy load,” Moore said.
David Turner, vice president of technical operations at MobiTV Inc.,
a leading provider of video to mobile devices in Emeryville, Calif., is
evaluating the Nexus 5000 to complement the firm’s MDS 9509 directors
to lower costs and take advantage of copper cabling. “I decided to move
DR and dedupe

off Brocade to Cisco for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the
modularity of the MDS switches. It’s much more cost-effective to get
to the next version with the Cisco platform. Unlike Brocade, it doesn’t
require expensive forklift upgrades,” Turner said.
Fernando Mejia, senior manager of IT infrastructure at the Independent
Purchasing Cooperative (IPCoop) Inc., the purchasing arm of the Subway
franchise in Miami, acquired a Cisco Nexus 7000 instead of a Catalyst 6500
because of its high performance, scalability and the ability to replace his
stackable Brocade FC switches once FCoE becomes available.
Dueling directors

MATURING DIRECTORS
Regardless of whose product you choose, both platforms will reliably
power your SAN, which is confirmed by the myriad storage-area networks
currently powered by Brocade and Cisco. Both vendors are embracing the
converged Ethernet paradigm in their product roadmaps, but unless you’re
willing to debug the initial CEE/DCE flaws as an early adopter, you’re well
advised to wait for at least another year until the standard and products
have matured. 2

Jacob Gsoedl is a freelance writer and a corporate director for business

Self-healing storage

systems. He can be reached at [email protected].

Adapting to change

26 Storage June 2009