CISCO Fibre Multi-layer Fabric Switch - Model MDS 9216A

Cisco Multilayer Fabric Switch MDS 9200 series

Rack Mount (3RU)

Model MDS 9216A

Sharing a consistent architecture with the Cisco MDS 9500 Series, the Cisco MDS 9216A combines multilayer intelligence with a modular chassis, making it an extremely capable and flexible fabric switch.

Starting with 16 2-Gbps Fibre Channel ports, the expansion slot on the Cisco MDS 9216A allows for the addition of any current or future Cisco MDS 9000 Family module for up to 64 total ports.

The switch is designed for building mission-critical enterprise storage area networks (SANs) where scalability, multilayer capability, resiliency, robust security, and ease of management are imperative.

The specific details of this switch's capabilities are easily found online, too many to list in great detail here.

TESTING:

Powers up fine and performs the self test procedure

Dual power supplies working fine

After the self-test, all front panel indicators are Green

The port indicators are Yellow - waiting for something to happen

Finally, I found my con cable and have had an opportunity to see what is happening from turn on, details below:

General Software Pentium III Embedded BIOS 2000 Rev 1.1
MDS9000 BIOS design

Low and Ext Memory Passed (600K + 976M so this must have 1Gb fitted)

2002 General Software
Pentium III-1.1-6E69-AA63

Loading Loader stage 1.5

Bootflash m9200-ek9-kickstart-mz.3.1.3a.bin
Image verification OK

Entering runlevel 3

Setup System Admin Account

It then tests and shows the results of various hardware e.g fan, power supplies, chassis clocks etc

It then asks me to set an Admin password, if my choice is considered too "weak" it rejects this until I enter a "stronger" password

I have set it for 1234test (hardly strong but accepted by the system)

It then continues to ask if I wish to enter basic config - at this point I stopped, for basic testing this was enough for me and at least I can see the machine is booting properly and no errors are being reported.

The rest of the configuration is up to the user, it does appear this machine has been "reset" at some stage as no user/passwords exist other than my own entry.