Brocade in 16Gb FC

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. announced solutions that will help enterprise customers migrate smoothly to private cloud architectures. The company is leading a transformation of the networking industry by introducing the first fabric-based, end-to-end networking solutions based on 16 gigabits per second Fibre Channel technologies.

  
Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone

Fabric-based networks are a fundamental requirement in supporting virtualized data centers and private cloud environments, and they are an element of the Brocade One strategy for providing low-latency, non-stop and easy-to-operate networks. The new Brocade 16 Gbps solutions demonstrate continued innovation for the Fibre Channel standard, provide an upgrade path for the installed base of Brocade storage networking customers, which includes 90 percent of Fortune 1000 enterprises.

According to IDC research, Fibre Channel switching will remain the dominant storage networking architecture over the next five years for continued support of the migration to server virtualization, which is the single biggest driver for new storage networking ports.

In addition to performance increases enabled by the migration to the 16 Gbps standard, Brocade is delivering other advancements such as in-flight data compression for improved bandwidth utilization, in-flight high-speed encryption for security and diagnostics for improved network visibility and management. For investment protection, the new portfolio integrates with the estimated 30 million Fibre Channel SAN ports that have already been deployed globally.

"The SAN is the nucleus of our business, serving the needs of more than 75,000 global users," said Vincent Stenhouse, SAN Specialist, Unilever. "The Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone offers us the performance and flexibility required to scale out operations as needed, drive virtualization across the fabric, while delivering a foundation for growth over the next five years and beyond. By deploying 16 Gbps technology, we will be able to further enhance the fabric with intelligent diagnostic capabilities and resilience, and be able to plan for the future safe in the knowledge that the environment can more than meet our expectations."

Brocade is also a in the development of Ethernet fabrics, a category of networking technology that is purpose-built for virtualization and cloud-optimized data centers. The Brocade Ethernet fabric solution is powered by Brocade VCS technology and available through the Brocade VDX 6720 Data Center Switch.

Brocade announced strong customer adoption for its Ethernet fabric solutions, which are helping customers to simplify their data center network architectures and improve business agility by enabling greater resource mobility and increased resiliency throughout the fabric.

"As a leader in fabric-based data center architectures with more than 15 years of experience in building mission-critical networks for many of the world’s most demanding IT environments, Brocade is helping customers move to highly virtualized and cloud models," said Jason Nolet, Vice President, Data Center and Enterprise Networking, Brocade. "Fibre Channel fabric technology continues to be the top customer choice for creating the most reliable and high-performance virtualized server and storage environments. In addition, Ethernet fabrics have the potential to define data center network architectures for the next decade. Both technologies demonstrate the highly integral and strategic nature that networks play in support of virtualization and the migration to the private cloud."

The New Brocade 16 Gbps Fibre Channel Portfolio
The 16 Gbps Fibre Channel portfolio from Brocade includes the Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone, the Brocade 6510 Switch, the Brocade 1860 Fabric Adapter, Brocade Network Advisor 11.1 management software and the Brocade Fabric OS 7.0 operating system. These products are based on the Fibre Channel industry standard, FC-PI-5, offering 16 Gbps performance, which doubles the performance of solutions that Brocade first pioneered in 2008. The complete Brocade 16 Gbps portfolio includes:

• DCX 8510 Backbone: A SAN backbone increases business agility with the proven scalability, performance and reliability to support private cloud storage. It is available in 8-slot or 4-slot chassis models supporting up to 384 16 Gbps ports at line-rate speeds and 8.2 terabits per second (Tbps) of chassis bandwidth. It simplifies scale-out network design to reduce complexity, simplify management and reduce overall costs. Energy consumption is 0.27 watts/Gbps, which is over 10 times more efficient than competitive solutions.
• 6510 Switch: Delivering price/performance value, the Brocade 6510 features a design that is purpose-built to enhance server virtualization, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and solid state disk (SSD) deployments in an 1U form factor. It can be expanded from 24 ports to 48 ports, delivering up to 768 Gbps aggregate throughput, while offering a low power consumption rates at 0.14 watts/Gbps. Each port delivers 40 percent greater performance than 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports at a comparable cost.
• 1860 Fabric Adapter: A class of server adapter that supports Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and Ethernet connectivity needs on a single adapter for server I/O consolidation, the Brocade 1860 is suited for private cloud-optimized data center networks. It also delivers wire-speed performance for both 16 Gbps Fibre Channel and 10 GbE, and more than 1 million IOPS for storage applications. It unifies the management of adapter, SAN and LAN resources via a single interface with Brocade Network Advisor.
• Network AdvisorBrocade Network Advisor 11.1 11.1: The unified management software solution for Brocade Fibre Channel, wired Ethernet and wireless Ethernet as well as converged network environments, Brocade Network Advisor provides greater insight for end-to-end network management to help reduce costs and simplify operations. It delivers a range of management features as well as server adapter and virtual machine management capabilities. To simplify management, it integrates with third-party storage resource management and data center orchestration tools such as the EMC Resource Management Suite and the HP Virtual Connect Enterprise and Storage Provisioning Managers.
• Fabric OS 7.0: The Brocade Fibre Channel hardware runs on the latest generation of Brocade Fabric OS, which is now available in version 7.0. This release offers several features designed for virtualization and cloud architectures, including Bottleneck Detection, Advanced Performance Monitoring and Adaptive Networking to help optimize fabric behavior and application performance.

"With thousands of joint customers worldwide, EMC and Brocade are making data centers more efficient and agile through cloud computing. Brocade’s new 16 Gigabit Fibre Channel solution suite strengthens our joint fabric-based solutions and is further proof of our shared commitment to deliver performance advantages required to support advanced data center technologies, including solid state disks, virtual desktop infrastructure and deduplication. Together, EMC and Brocade are helping organizations accelerate their journey to the cloud," said Josh Kahn, Vice President, Solutions Marketing, EMC.

"Over the years, Brocade networking solutions have become an integral component in improving the scalability, efficiency and agility of our customers’ Hitachi storage environments for mission-critical data and applications. We are excited about Brocade’s next generation Fibre Channel solutions, which promise to help our customers to more easily on-board our industry-leading storage solutions and achieve improved performance, centralized management and faster connectivity between data centers," said Sean Moser, Vice President, Storage Software Product Management, Hitachi Data Systems.

"Due to increasing pressures to respond quickly to business changes and deliver greater operational efficiency, organizations are looking to deploy a reliable, high-performing, virtualized environment. "HP and Brocade provide mission-critical storage as well as data networking requirements for its clients, and we expect Brocade’s 16Gb Fibre Channel switching products will further optimize the connection of virtual servers to network storage," said David Scott, Senior Vice President and General Manager, HP Storage.

"Microsoft is committed to providing enterprise customers the benefits of private cloud environments, including self-service, scalability and elasticity, that collectively are transforming how IT services are delivered. Microsoft shares Brocade’s vision for helping customers support new and distributed applications that provide new levels of uptime through open, multi-vendor architectures that protect their existing and new IT investments. Brocade’s next generation Fibre Channel products, along with the company’s advancements in Ethernet fabrics, will better enable mission-critical SQL Server and Windows Server deployments in highly virtualized environments and large-scale data centers that need the highest levels of scalability," said Mike Shutz, Senior Director for Windows Server, Microsoft.

The Brocade 16 Gbps Fibre Channel solutions will be available beginning in calendar Q2 2011.