Cisco MDS 9000 Family Release Notes for Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 5.2(8b) (OL-27554-06, July 12, 2013)

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Cisco MDS 9000 Family Release Notes for Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 5.2(8b)
OL-27554-06
New Features in Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 5.2
core. FCoE supports I/O consolidation by preserving all Fibre Channel constructs, and maintaining
the same latency, security, and traffic management attributes of Fibre Channel. In addition, FCoE
extends Fibre Channel SAN connectivity to Cisco Nexus 7000 switches that are FCoE capable.
• Software support for Cisco MDS 9000 Family 8-Gbps Advanced Fibre Channel Switching Modules
Cisco NX-OS Release 5.2(1) includes software support for the 32-port and the 48-port 8-Gbps
Advanced Fibre Channel switching modules that can be used in the MDS 9500 Series Directors. The
MDS 9513 Multilayer Director can be upgraded with the new Generation 4 Fabric-3 module to
increase bandwidth to 256 Gbps per slot. In addition, the 8-Gbps Advance Fibre Channel switching
module support speeds of 10 Gbps on the MDS 9513 with the Fabric-3 module installed. The
upgrade from the Fabric-2 module to the Fabric-3 module is nondisruptive.
Cisco MDS 9000 8-Gbps Advanced Fibre Channel switching modules support Cisco FlexSpeed
technology that enables ports to be configured as either 1-, 2-, 4-, or 8-Gbps, or 10-Gbps Fibre
Channel interfaces.
Cisco MDS 9000 8-Gbps Advanced Fibre Channel switching modules support Arbitrated Local
Switching to locally switch traffic at line rate 8-Gbps in a fair manner across all ports on the module
through central arbitration.
• Storage Media Encryption for Disk
The Storage Media Encryption (SME) solution, which currently protects data at rest on
heterogeneous tape drives and virtual tape libraries (VTLs), has been enhanced to encrypt data on
disk arrays in a SAN environment using secure IEEE-standard Advanced Encryption Standard
(AES) algorithms.
SME Disk requires the Storage Media Encryption Package license.
See the Cisco MDS 9000 Family Storage Media Encryption Configuration Guide for more
information on configuring and deploying SME Disk.
• Cisco Data Center Network Manager for SAN
Cisco Fabric Manager and Cisco Data Center Network Manager have merged into a unified product
that can now manage and monitor both SAN and LAN environments. As a part of this merger, Cisco
Fabric Manager has been rebranded as Cisco DCNM for SAN.
As a part of NX-OS Release 5.2(1), Cisco DCNM for SAN introduces server-based licenses that
allow you to purchase a pool of Cisco DCNM for SAN licenses instead of a switch-based Fabric
Manager Server (FMS) license. The installed base of existing FMS licenses are grandfathered into
Cisco DCNM for SAN, which means that you do not have to purchase a new license to use Cisco
DCNM for SAN if you have an existing FMS license.
There are many new features in Cisco DCNM for SAN, including:
– Summary and host dashboards
– VMware topology and performance
– Performance forecasting charts
– External SMI-S 1.4 agent
– FCoE provisioning and management
Detailed information about Cisco DCNM features is available in the Cisco DCNM Release Notes,
Release 5.2, and in the feature configuration guides for Cisco DCNM for SAN.
For additional information about Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 5.2(1), see the Cisco MDS 9000 Family
Release Notes for Cisco MDS NX-OS Release 5.2(1).