Brocade Advances Replication and DR Capabilities With New Switch

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. announced an extension platform that enables enterprises to achieve shorter recovery points and faster recovery times for restoring data and applications in the event of a disaster, or when performing routine backup and replication tasks over unreliable WAN links.

7840 Extension Switch

The DR platform also extends Brocade Fabric Vision technology between data centers to automate monitoring, increase insight, and simplify troubleshooting over distance to automatically detect WAN anomalies, help ensure performance, and avoid unplanned downtime.

Enterprises face challenges from the growth of data and application workload traffic driven by virtualization, which is putting considerable pressure on IT to keep data highly available. According to IDC, DR requirements have become increasingly stringent for their mission-critical applications, with 84% of enterprises having RPOs of less than an hour and 78% having RTOs of less than four hours.1

“With stored data expected to grow at a 44% CAGR over the next five years, enterprises are demanding that their recovery solutions meet ever higher standards in keeping data available amid a variety of increasingly frequent natural and man-made disasters,” said Eric Burgener, research director for storage, IDC. “Furthermore, end users are expecting to access their data on a 7×24 basis, forcing enterprises to meet their demands for ‘always on’ application services.“

To address these challenges and to provide near-zero downtime and continuous application availability, Brocade has expanded its Gen 5 FC SAN portfolio with the addition of the 7840 Extension Switch, which delivers a six-fold increase in performance, along with availability and simplified management between remote data centers. The solution also doubles the performance, at half the cost, compared to WAN optimization appliances that are often mismatched when deployed as a DR alternative.

To complement the new switch, Brocade has also extended Fabric Vision technology between data centers to provide new levels of control and visibility to pinpoint problems faster and avoid unplanned outages. This functionality reduces the complexity and operating costs for remote data centers, helping them to achieve always-on operations with maximum application uptime.

“Managing multiple data centers is inherently complex and time-intensive,” said Jack Rondoni, VP, storage networking, at Brocade. “By deploying the Brocade 7840 Extension Switch with enhanced Fabric Vision technology, organizations can create better solutions that meet or exceed their requirements and expectations for faster replication and recovery to achieve always-on operations.”

In addition, the company also announced the FC16-64, a port blade for the DCX 8510 director that provides the highe and energy-efficient connectivity to maximize system utilization and reduce both capital and operating costs. The new blade increases DCX 8510 scalability up to 512 Gen 5 FC ports with a total system bandwidth of 10.2Tb/s. Each blade consumes 70% less power compared to competitive offerings, while simultaneously increasing port density by 33% and reducing cabling requirements by 75% – improving operational efficiency.

7840 Improves Enterprise DR Readiness
7840 switches offer 40Gb/s and 10Gb/s FCIP connectivity options, with data throughput speeds that are at least six times faster than competitive solutions. 7840 systems deliver an 80Gb/s of application data throughput while securing data flows over distance with 256-bit IPsec encryption without a performance penalty.

In addition, 7840 switches improve replication performance over distance using data compression and disk and tape protocol acceleration.

Other extension features that maximize availability
and increase overall network reliability include:

• Non-disruptive Upgrades: Facilitate always-on business operations and maximize application uptime with WAN-side non-disruptive firmware upgrades.
• Extension Trunking: Combines multiple WAN connections into a single, logical, high-bandwidth trunk, providing active load balancing and network resilience to protect against WAN link failures.
• Adaptive Rate Limiting: Dynamically adjusts bandwidth sharing between minimum and maximum rate limits to optimize bandwidth utilization and maintain WAN performance during disruptions.

Fabric Vision Technology Enables
Long-Distance Monitoring, Management, and Diagnostics
Now extended over distance, Fabric Vision technology is a hardware and software solution that helps enterprises accelerate new deployments, optimize resources, reduce operational costs, and overcome infrastructure complexity between data centers.

With Fabric Vision technology, administrators have new tools and automation capabilities that simplify day-to-day management tasks, increase productivity, and enable proactive monitoring of critical metrics between data centers to automatically detect WAN anomalies, help ensure performance, and avoid unplanned downtime.

Key features for DR include:

• Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite (MAPS): Simplifies monitoring with policy-based automation between data centers to automatically detect WAN anomalies and avoid unplanned downtime.
• Flow Vision: Accelerates troubleshooting of end-to-end I/O flows over distance with integrated diagnostics and eliminates the need for expensive third-party tools.
• Dashboards: Quickly discover and resolve WAN network issues via root-cause analysis and point-in-time playback. In addition, administrators can view all critical information from thin-client, Web-accessible dashboards, which saves administrative time and effort.

The 7840 Extension Switch, extended Fabric Vision technology, and the FC16-64 port blade for the DCX 8510 will be available this calendar quarter through select Brocade OEM partners, including EMC, HDS, and others.

“Data protection is fundamental to IT transformation and has enabled EMC customers to move backup and recovery and replication from a cost center to a business enabler. The increased performance and functionality of the Brocade 7840 is a strategic addition to our Connectrix family that increases the overall value of the EMC Protection Storage Architecture,” said Barry Ader, VP, product marketing, EMC Corporation.

“Keeping our mutual customers operating nonstop is more than just planning for DR – it’s about building a resilient enterprise. With significant improvements in throughput, along with improved network control and insight, the Brocade 7840 is an ideal high-performance data center extension platform for backup and replication that will improve our customer’s data and application availability,” said Linda Xu, VP, WW partner marketing, HDS.