> # Configuring and Managing VSANs

> You can achieve higher security and greater stability in Fibre Channel fabrics by using virtual SANs (VSANs) on Cisco MDS 9000 Family switches and Cisco Nexus 5000 Series switches. VSANs provide isolation among devices that are physically connected to the same fabric. With VSANs you can create multiple logical SANs over a common physical infrastructure. Each VSAN can contain up to 239 switches and has an independent address space that allows identical Fibre Channel IDs (FC IDs) to be used simultaneously in different VSANs. This chapter includes the following sections:

> - Information About VSANs
> - Licensing Requirements for VSAN
> - Default Settings
> - Configuring VSANs
> - Configuring Load Balancing
> - Verifying VSAN Configuration
> - Field Descriptions for VSAN
> - Additional References

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