Brocade Pushes Forward with 100 Gigabit Ethernet Router

Brocade introduced its MLXe Core Router and 100 GbE blade designed to address the exponential traffic surge that carriers are experiencing worldwide. Significantly, Brocade said its MLXe routers, which will be offered in 4-, 8-, 16- and 32-slot configurations, enable new 100 GbE price/performance points that drive the 100G market forward for carrier core networks as well as next-generation virtualized data centers. The new 100 GbE blade also integrates with and operates across existing Brocade MLX, Brocade MLXe and NetIron XMR routers.


The Brocade MLXe offers a 15.36 Terabits per second (Tbps) fabric, which is nine times the system capacity of competing routers. It provides four times the 100 GbE wire-speed density of existing systems, while its 4.8 billion packets per second performance provides five times the IPv6 forwarding capacity.


Brocade is also introducing a Multi-Chassis Trunk (MCT) innovation to simplify data center networks and increase resiliency for customers moving to 10 GbE-enabled servers. This advancement enables network-level virtualization and enhanced network reliability while greatly reducing management complexity. In addition, a new Brocade Network Advisor management solution provides visibility for Brocade Fibre Channel, Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), wireless, Ethernet switching, and MPLS networks.


"The new offerings are technological breakthroughs developed to help service provider and data center customers collapse their infrastructure layers, allowing for reduced overhead and massive scalability without compromising performance or efficiency," said Ken Cheng, vice president, Service Provider Products, Brocade. "They fulfill the promise of the Brocade One vision by helping customers transition seamlessly to a world where information and applications reside anywhere in the cloud."


The Brocade MLXe router is available today in 4-, 8-, 16- and 32-slot configurations and has a starting list price of $22,245 USD.


The Brocade 100 GbE blade has a list price of $194,995 USD for two ports of 100 GbE in a single blade. Availability is expected next year.


Brocade notes that is has more than 9,000 carrier and data center routers deployed globally.
http://www.brocade.com