This IBM® Redbooks® Product Guide describes the Cisco MDS 9396S 16G Multilayer Fabric Switch for IBM System Storage®. The Cisco MDS 9396S 16G Multilayer Fabric Switch (Figure 1) is the latest generation of the high performance, high density, and highly reliable Cisco MDS Series Fabric switches. It combines high performance with outstanding flexibility and cost effectiveness. This robust, compact, 2-rack-unit (2RU) switch scales from 48 to 96 line-rate 16-Gbps Fibre Channel ports. The Cisco MDS 9396S is excellent for these situations: A stand-alone SAN in large departmental storage environments A middle-of-row or top-of-the-rack switch in medium-sized redundant fabrics An edge switch in enterprise data center core-edge topologies