Blade Switches

Comprehensive Blade Server I/O Solutions

Cisco Blade Switches are a comprehensive solution for blade server network services that extend from the blade server edge to clients at the network edge. These purpose-built I/O solutions for blade server provide a virtualized data center infrastructure that can help you lower total cost of ownership and improve end-user and IT productivity.

The Cisco Blade Switches product family includes Cisco Catalyst Ethernet blade switches and Cisco MDS Fibre Channel blade switches for blade servers. An essential component of Cisco Data Center 3.0 solutions, Cisco Blade Switches are:

• Easy to operate and deploy
  • Virtual blade switch technology reduces the number of switches to manage.
  • Management interface and troubleshooting tools are consistent with other Cisco Data Center 3.0 products.
  • Simplifies SAN switch management and lets you scale Fibre Channel deployment with N_port virtualization (NPV).
• "Server-smart"
  • Resilient LAN and SAN uplinks increase blade server and virtual machine availability.
  • Virtual machine portability and live migration do not compromise security policies.
  • Intelligent congestion management mechanisms optimize network bandwidth.
• Flexible
  • Virtual blade switch technology lets you configure network topology based on application needs.
  • Virtual machines stay connected to storage resources during live migration with Cisco FlexAttach.
  • You can scale LAN and SAN bandwidth as business needs grow.
  • Provides flexible options for configuration and management such as a command-line interface and a GUI.