MDS 9000 SAN-OS Software: The Virtual Machine Aware SAN
Server virtualization technologies enable the consolidation of numerous application servers on a much smaller number of physical servers running a hypervisor, a specialized operating system capable of hosting multiple guest system images. While this solution dramatically reduces the administrative steps required to deploy and administer each individual application server, it is very demanding for the network infrastructure.
Challenges for the network infrastructure include:
- Change of communication patterns from a many-to-one model to a many-to-few (mesh) modelUnpredictable traffic generated by the dynamic movement of virtual machines across physical serversRapid deployment of virtual machines without complex management procedures and without affecting security
This document describes the innovative approach introduced by the Cisco MDS 9000 Family to support an end-to-end virtualized SAN environment that is flexible, secure, scalable, and mobile.