DUBAI, United Arab Emirates- 5th September, 2011: Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD), the leader in fabric-based data center networking solutions, today announced it 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.

Brocade has also enhanced its Brocade Network Advisor, the industry's only unified network management platform for IP and SAN environments, to improve operational simplicity by allowing 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. These enhancements are designed to ensure successful VM migrations within and across Ethernet fabrics.

"Brocade is known for building efficient data center 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 of Data Center and Enterprise Networking at Brocade. "Our differentiation is based on 15 years of expertise in building high-performance fabrics for the world's most demanding data centers. With this second major wave of Ethernet fabric capabilities, we are extending our lead in this important new technology category and delivering greater agility to our customers through superior simplicity, automation and reliability."

Expanding the Brocade VDX Data Center Switch Family

Availability and Pricing

The new Brocade Ethernet fabric solutions will be available beginning in calendar Q3 2011. For pricing information, please contact your local Brocade value-added reseller or OEM.

Partner Quote

"Cloud computing has caused a paradigm shift, which has profoundly changed the way in which IT supports business processes. Integration of Brocade Ethernet fabric technology into Fujitsu's Dynamic Infrastructures architecture will enable our customers to further enhance the reliability, flexibility and performance delivered by our solutions to enable them to achieve their key business objectives."

Jens-Peter Seick, Senior Vice President, Product Development Group, Fujitsu Technology Solutions.

Videos

Jason Nolet, Vice President of Data Center and Enterprise Networking at Brocade http://www.youtube.com/watchæv=adpYXjQWcpw