Transparent SAN Migration from a Heterogeneous Environment to a Cisco MDS based SAN:

As storage area networking (SAN) evolves to meet new demands, customers are planning a migration strategy to transparently migrate from a heterogeneous environment. Cisco is committed to making this simple and efficient by expanding its flexibility and simplicity to interoperate smoothly with all industry-standard solutions. Cisco SAN switches have set a new standard by providing interoperability, flexibility, and functionality within MDS switches to meet the needs of today’s changing SANs.

Migrating SANs from one vendor to another requires a specific plan that includes design, configuration, and implementation processes along with post migration analysis. This Webinar helps you evaluate appropriate options for SAN conversion from third-party solutions to Cisco SANs using the Cisco MDS 9000 Family.

When migrating to a Cisco MDS 9000 Family SAN, you can choose among three migration methods: rip and replace, cap and grow, and interoperate. The choice of migration method is determined by several criteria, including whether you want a single-vendor or mixed-vendor operation, risk-mitigation needs, migration timeline, connectivity requirements and overall fabric capacity during the migration process.

Rip and Replace: As the name suggests, with this approach you simply replace third-party switches with preconfigured Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches.
Cap and Grow: Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches are connected in a parallel topology to an existing third-party SAN. New and existing servers and targets are attached to the Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches. Third-party switches are removed one by one while both SANs are running and serving traffic simultaneously and independently during the migration. This option allows greater scalability and growth in the future.
Interoperate: Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches are connected to third-party switches using interoperate mode. Both vendors work together for a period of time before third-party switches are removed in phases.

In this webcast, we address migration options, interoperability modes, and planning to mitigate the future issues with your SAN. Customer examples and design criteria along with migration best practices will be discussed as well. This technical webcast includes:

MDS product portfolio overview.
Details on how Cisco MDS interoperates with other SAN switches during migration
Overview of technical concepts to understand migration concepts
Implementation and verification of migration
Best practices and customer examples

Cisco® MDS 9000 Family SAN switches are recognized across the data center industry for their reliability, flexibility, performance, and investment protection. The Cisco MDS 9000 Family portfolio includes the Cisco MDS 9700 and 9500 Series Multilayer Directors, the multiprotocol Cisco MDS 9200 Series Multiservice Switches, and the fixed form-factor Cisco MDS 9100 Multilayer Fabric Switches. These switches provide flexibility, redundancy, high availability, and high performance at the core and edge levels with room for future growth.

Live Online Event, Wednesday, June 25, 2014; 8–9 a.m. Pacific Time