The Cisco MDS 9706 Multilayer Director is a director-class SAN switch designed for deployment in small to medium-sized storage networks that can support enterprise clouds and business transformation. It layers a comprehensive set of intelligent features onto a high-performance, protocol-independent switch fabric. Cisco MDS 9706 addresses the stringent requirements of large virtualized data center storage environments. It delivers uncompromising availability, security, scalability, ease of management, and transparent integration of superior technologies for extremely flexible data center SAN solutions. The Cisco MDS 9706 lets you transparently deploy unified fabrics with Fiber Channel, IBM Fiber Connection (FICON), and Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) connectivity for low total cost of ownership (TCO).