Brocade advances Ethernet fabric innovation to unleash power of virtualization

DUBAI, UAE: Brocade, the leader in fabric-based data center networking solutions, is delivering more choice, flexibility and automation to customers deploying virtualization and cloud IT infrastructures. Specifically, the company announced enhancements to the Brocade Ethernet fabric portfolio that utilizes Brocade VCS technology. These enhancements are designed to increase scalability, improve virtual machine (VM) awareness, further simplify management and significantly reduce operational overhead.



The new additions and enhancements include:



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



* Increases in Ethernet fabric scalability by doubling the number of switches within a VCS fabric, allowing customers to easily and quickly scale out their data center networks.



* The new Brocade VDX 6730 Data Center Switch, a 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch that protects existing SAN infrastructure investments by seamlessly bridging VCS Ethernet fabrics to Fibre Channel SAN fabrics.



* The new Brocade VDX 6710 Data Center Switch, a high-density, 1/10 GbE switch that 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 center LAN deployments.



* Unified management of Brocade Ethernet fabrics with other data center LAN, SAN and application delivery infrastructures in a single enterprise-class application: Brocade Network Advisor.



With these new enhancements, Brocade is delivering Ethernet fabric integration that uses Brocade Network Advisor to work with the VMware vCenter Server virtualization and cloud infrastructure management platform, reducing overall networking administration costs and unplanned downtime. Brocade VCS fabric uses Brocade Network Advisor to work with with VMware vCenter Server so that VMs running within an Ethernet fabric are automatically configured based on information stored in VMware vCenter Server and automatically maintain their connectivity services as VMs move within the fabric.



In contrast, configuring today’s legacy networks for virtualized data centers can be an error-prone, time-consuming manual process for most organizations. This new VCS fabric enhancement offers a secure connection to VMware vCenter Server to eliminate those problems and ensure consistency between server and network configurations.