Brocade enhances Ethernet fabric portfolio

LAS VEGAS, USA: Data centre networking solutions maker Brocade announced new enhancements to its Ethernet fabric portfolio, that utilizes Brocade VCS technology, at the VMworld 2011 event.

These enhancements are designed to increase scalability, improve virtual machine (VM) awareness, further simplifying management and significantly reducing operational overhead, said the company in a release.

Also Read: Brocade VDX 6720 Data Centre Switches

Brocade announced new VCS technology extensions that automate VM discovery, configuration and mobility within Brocade Ethernet fabrics.

This increases the Ethernet fabric scalability by doubling the number of switches within a VCS fabric, added the company.

Brocade also introduced a new VDX 6730 data centre switch, a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch that protects existing SAN infrastructure investments by bridging VCS Ethernet fabrics to Fibre Channel SAN fabrics.

The switch, a high-density, 1/10 GbE one, provides a low-cost entry point for VCS fabric technology by enabling 1 GbE servers to connect to Ethernet fabric environments as well as classic data centre LAN deployments, added the company.

Brocade also announced unified management of Brocade Ethernet fabrics with other data centre LAN, SAN and application delivery infrastructures in a single enterprise-class application through Brocade Network Advisor.

With these new enhancements, Brocade would deliver Ethernet fabric integration that uses Brocade Network Advisor to work with the VMware vCenter server virtualization and cloud infrastructure management platform.

Brocade has also enhanced Brocade Network Advisor, its unified network management platform for IP and SAN environments. This allows all VCS nodes in a fabric to be managed as a single logical switch as well as enabling the ability to associate VMware port groups to port profiles across fabrics and VMware vCenter Server instances, claimed the company.

"Brocade is known for building efficient data centre networks that just work. Ethernet fabrics based on Brocade VCS technology are highly differentiated, providing unmatched automation and simplicity compared to traditional, outdated network architectures," said Jason Nolet, vice president, Data Center and Enterprise Networking, Brocade.

Brocade also expanded the VDX product family with two new switch models that support 1 GbE server and storage environments and allow Ethernet-based server access to all the data stored on Fibre Channel SANs.

The new Brocade Ethernet fabric solutions would be available in Q3 2011.