Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Brocade Unveils Data Center Switch and FCoE Network Adapters

Brocade introduced an end-to-end Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)-based solution that brings the Fibre Channel (FC) standard and Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) together. As part of the announcement, Brocade introduced two new products that support FCoE and CEE:

  • The new Brocade 8000 Switch is a multiprotocol, Layer 2, top-of-rack FCoE switch with 24 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) CEE ports and eight FC ports supporting 8 Gbps speeds -- enabling the consolidation of input/output (I/O) storage and data networking ports at the server edge.


  • The newly introduced Brocade converged network adapters (CNAs) provide up to 500,000 IOs per second (IOPS) per port and are available in two models: the Brocade 1010 single-port CNA and the Brocade 1020 dual-port CNA. The Brocade CNAs are one of the first-to-market single application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) CNAs that provide classic Ethernet capabilities based on the common TCP/IP protocol suite, converged Ethernet and storage transport functionality over a single link and deliver 10 Gbps FCoE connectivity from servers to SAN fabrics and to local area networks (LANs).


Within the rack, the Brocade 8000 connects to servers equipped with Brocade 1010 and 1020 CNAs. Combined with the Brocade 8000, the Brocade CNAs form a seamless end-to-end FCoE connectivity solution, from server to storage target, with a common management platform via Brocade Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM), industry-leading performance and superior Quality of Service (QoS) to meet the demands of next-generation data centers.


The Brocade 8000 is based on Brocade Fabric OS (FOS) with extensions covering FCoE and CEE, and it delivers distributed intelligence throughout the network, while enabling a wide range of value-added applications and advanced fabric services, including Brocade Fabric Watch, Inter-Switch Link (ISL) Trunking, and end-to-end Advanced Performance Monitoring.


Both the Brocade 8000 Switch and Brocade 1010 and 1020 CNAs are managed by Brocade DCFM, which enables the management of traditional FC SAN and new FCoE/CEE environments from a single application. Brocade DCFM Enterprise also provides a non-disruptive upgrade path from Brocade Enterprise Fabric Connectivity Manager (EFCM) or Brocade Fabric Manager.
http://www.brocade.com