Brocade introduced the DCX Backbone, the first in a new class of high-performance data center networking products designed to address the demanding requirements of the evolving data center.

Built on four generations of proven data center technology and designed to integrate seamlessly with existing Brocade products – including existing McDATA solutions – the Brocade DCX provides industry breakthroughs in terms of performance, scalability, and efficiency. As a result, customers can use the Brocade DCX to build data center fabrics that enable extremely high levels of consolidation and cost savings along with lower deployment and operational risk.

"The virtual server phenomenon has been awesome to watch. Massive consolidation, efficiency improvements and fluidity are all now possible – assuming that the rest of the infrastructure can support it,” said Enterprise Strategy Group Founder and Senior Analyst Steve Duplessie. “The Brocade DCX Backbone has the same value proposition, and actually should make production virtualization deployments happen more rapidly by taking away many of the performance and scalability concerns that server virtualization may present downstream. Bandwidth, density, power consumption and scale can really matter when you are collapsing thousands of physical servers down to hundreds."

The Brocade DCX plays a key role in delivering on the Brocade Data Center Fabric (DCF) architecture announced in October 2007. The Brocade DCF is an architectural framework that allows customers to evolve their data center infrastructures for maximum performance, flexibility, and investment protection, while enabling important industry trends such as server virtualization and the greening of the data center.

“SunGard is looking forward to upgrading both the mainframe FICON and the Open Systems Fibre Channel environments with Brocade DCX Backbone technology,” said Tom Tucker, Storage Product Director for SunGard. “It will offer higher performance to our customers, and allow SunGard to consolidate individual directors and switches into this high port count Backbone product for ease of management in our constantly changing environment.”

“We have used Brocade technology for many years at the heart of our data center,” said Bertram Schön, Chief Technology Officer at Lufthansa Systems. “As we evolve our data center fabric architecture to meet the growing needs of our users, the DCX Backbone provides native interoperability and the lowest-risk way to evolve our architecture for new levels of performance and capabilities for many years to come.”

“The demand for applications and data in our business continues to grow, and our infrastructure must grow seamlessly and non-disruptively,” said Germar Braam, Lead Architect of KPN. “To meet these needs, we chose to evolve our data center fabric architecture with the 8 Gbit/sec Brocade DCX Backbone.”

“We are excited to get the 8 Gbit/sec Fibre Channel Brocade DCX Backbone installed in the EDEKA data center in Hamburg,” said Rainer Zander, head of the EDEKA Data Center in Hamburg. “The Brocade DCX enables seamless integration with our existing infrastructure, sustaining our future growth in storage and performance as part of a global data center fabric architecture.”

The new Brocade DCX platform brings many new and enhanced capabilities to customers to drive higher levels of consolidation, cost savings, and data center efficiencies: The Brocade DCX Offers the Highest Levels of Performance and Scalability: To facilitate broad expansion and greater mobility of virtualized servers and networked storage, the Brocade DCX provides the industry's highest performance, joining the Brocade 48000 Director as the industry's first solutions with 8 Gbit/sec Fibre Channel capabilities. With up to 896 ports of 8 Gbit/sec Fibre Channel, the Brocade DCX provides more than five times the switching bandwidth of existing SAN directors and supports eight times as many virtual servers.

The Brocade DCX Utilizes Innovative Adaptive Networking Services to Better Enable Server Virtualization: The Brocade Adaptive Networking services features included in the Brocade DCX enable the fabric to dynamically allocate shared resources as changes occur in the requirements of virtual servers and networked storage. If congestion occurs (or is predicted), the fabric can automatically adjust bandwidth and other resources according to defined service levels – helping to ensure that higher-priority workloads dynamically receive the resources they need.

The Brocade DCX Offers the Highest Levels of Interoperability and Flexibility: Designed for investment protection and extension, the Brocade DCX is fully interoperable with Brocade and existing McDATA SANs, complementing the Brocade family of data center infrastructure products –including the Brocade M6140, Brocade Mi10K, and Brocade 48000 directors; Brocade 200E, Brocade 4900, and Brocade 5000 switches; and Brocade SAN extension solutions. Moreover, the Brocade DCX provides comprehensive and flexible deployment options, including the capability to support Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), Data Center Ethernet (DCE), Gigabit Ethernet, and iSCSI protocols.

The Brocade DCX Simplifies Data Center Management: The Brocade DCX supports advanced fabric applications for data migration, continuous replication, and data encryption, enabling customers to better protect and secure their corporate data. The new platform is also supported by a broad range of network management tools, including offerings from Brocade and its OEM Partners.

The Brocade DCX Continues Brocade's Leadership in Energy Efficiency: Reducing energy consumption and accommodating data growth are critical requirements in today's IT strategies. The Brocade DCX is 10 times more power-efficient per unit of bandwidth than competitive offerings, allowing customers to better manage data center energy requirements and operational costs.

“The Brocade DCX Backbone sets a new standard for data center networks,” said Ian Whiting, Vice President and General Manager for the Brocade Data Center Infrastructure Division. “Through massive consolidation of SANs, virtual server networks and Data Center Ethernet networks, the Brocade DCX Backbone will enable customers to drive significant costs out of their data center operations while ensuring the performance, scalability, and five-nines availability required for current and future applications.”

The Brocade DCX is available today from Brocade and is supported by a broad portfolio of Brocade professional and support services. The new platform is also immediately available from Sun Microsystems, and is expected to be available from all Brocade OEM Partners during the first half of 2008.

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