Brocade Introduces New Modular Solutions; Strengthens Next-Generation Brocade DCX Backbone Family

Brocade recently announced that it has further strengthened its next-generation Brocade (News - Alert) DCX Backbone family with the introduction of two new modular solutions: the Brocade FX8-24 Extension Blade and the Brocade FCoE 10-24 Blade.

 

The Brocade FX8-24 Extension Blade connects two or more data centers to enhance business continuity and disaster recovery, while Brocade FCoE 10-24 Blade provides fiber channel over Ethernet capabilities for server I/O consolidation in the data center.

 

Designed specifically for larger enterprise data centers and multi-site environments, these advancements extend the value of the Brocade DCX as one of the “industry’s most strategic and flexible data center networking platforms through constant innovation and third-party support,” said the company.

 

The new Brocade FX8-24 Extension Blade addresses demanding extension and storage networking requirements with Fibre Channel and FCIP bandwidth, port density and throughput for maximum application performance over WAN links.

 

In addition to twelve 8-gigabit-per-second fiber channel ports, the extension blade offers ten 1-gigabit Ethernet ports, and up to two optional 10 GbE ports.

 

Company officials said that the organizations can install up to two Brocade FX8-24 blades in a Brocade DCX or DCX-4S Backbone and can double the aggregate bandwidth to 40 Gbps by activating the optional 10 GbE ports.

 

The platform also features FCIP trunking. Officials said that it’s the industry’s only solution enabling FCIP tunnels with up to 10 Gbps bandwidth using 10 GbE ports and 4 Gbps using 1 GbE ports. Additional new features and enhancements include Adaptive Rate Limiting, FCIP Quality of Service (QoS), and more.

 

The new Brocade FCoE 10-24 blade is part of a unified solution that includes the Brocade 1010/1020 Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) and centralized management. Officials said that it leverages the multi-protocol architecture and breakthrough performance of Brocade DCX Backbones to deliver end-of-row option for consolidating server I/O connectivity.

 

Featuring 24 10-Gbps-speed CEE ports, the blade provides rich Layer 2 Ethernet functionality for local area network traffic. Officials said that storage traffic is delivered to the storage area network through 8 Gbps fiber channel blades in the Brocade DCX Backbone chassis.

 

Brocade believes that its data center-to-data center connectivity solutions are essential to implementing effective business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Officials said that this helps companies to replicate data and digital files over high-performance metro-area and wide-area networks on a real-time or near-real-time basis.

 

Based on FCoE and Converged Enhanced Ethernet, Brocade server I/O consolidation solutions are designed to provide the scalability needed in demanding, virtualized server environments to meet the needs of evolving enterprise data centers, said officials.

 

With these networking solutions, companies can build their next-generation data center networks and support emerging technologies such as server virtualization and cloud computing.

 

Officials said that both extension products will be available through EMC (News - Alert), Hitachi Data Systems and HP. The Brocade FCoE 10-24 Blade for the Brocade DCX Backbone will also be available through NetApp -- supported by NetApp FAS and V-Series unified storage systems.