The Cisco MDS 9000 Port Analyzer Adapter enables effective, low-cost analysis of Fibre Channel traffic anywhere in a network at any time. The device is a standalone Fibre Channel-to-Ethernet adapter that allows for simple, least disturbing, clear analysis of Fibre Channel traffic in a switched fabric. The main advantage of the Cisco solution is its straightforwardness. The portable, lightweight adapter can be connected to any port on any Director or Fabric Switch in the MDS 9000 Family. Storage administrators can troubleshoot anywhere in the network quickly and cost-effectively, with no network disruption.

The Cisco MDS 9000 Family Fibre Channel analysis solutions use the Cisco MDS 9000 Port Analyzer Adapter: Cisco Traffic Analyzer for Fibre Channel and Cisco Protocol Analyzer for Fibre Channel. The Cisco Traffic Analyzer provides real-time analysis of SPAN traffic or analysis of captured traffic through a Web browser user interface. Traffic captured by one or more Port Analyzer Adapters can be analyzed at the same time as a single PC. This Cisco Traffic Analyzer solution enables customers to quickly determine the throughput for traffic between specific Fibre Channel sources and destinations, all traffic in a particular Virtual SAN (VSAN), or all network traffic.

The Cisco Protocol Analyzer enables Fibre Channel traffic to be analyzed at the frame level in real-time or from captured SPAN traffic through a Java graphical user interface. Traffic captured by a PAA can be analyzed by Ethereal, which is public domain software enhanced by Cisco for Fibre Channel and SCSI protocol decoding. Filters capture data to reduce file size and to enable easier location of frames of interest.

Part numbers associated with this product;

DS-PAA, DS-PAA-2, DS-SFP-FC-2G-SW, DS-SFP-FC-2G-SW, DS-SFP-FC-2G-LW, DS-SFP-FC-2G-LW