Brocade Builds OpenFlow into Switching & Routing Platforms

Brocade has integrated hardware based OpenFlow support into its MLX Series of routers and related NetIron platforms, which support wire-speed 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) performance.

The company said its goal it to deliver a SDN-ready product family today that will serve as the foundation for software-defined network architecture in the future. These products include the Brocade VDX family of data center switches, Brocade ADX Series application delivery switches, Brocade MLX Series of 100 GbE routers, Brocade NetIron CER Series routers and Brocade NetIron CES Series switches.

Brocade articulated an SDN strategy encompassing the following key technologies and capabilities:

Resilient and auto-forming Ethernet fabrics optimized for virtualized applications with virtual machine (VM)-aware intelligence.

Network virtualization via overlay technologies for highly scalable multi-tenancy environments.

Support for OpenFlow in hybrid mode, enabling traditional Layer 2/3 forwarding with OpenFlow.

Partnerships with a broad set of OpenFlow controller vendors and open APIs.

A single common cloud management and orchestration interface through northbound standards-based plug-ins and standards-based RESTful interfaces. The plug-ins to cloud management frameworks -- including Cloudstack, Microsoft System Center, OpenStack, and VMware vCenter/vCloud Director -- provide comprehensive orchestration capabilities for cloud service delivery and automated operations. http://www.brocade.com http://www.brocade.com/launch/sdn/index.html