Thursday, February 5, 2015

Brocade Advances its VCS Data Center Fabric with Scalable Switch

Brocade announced significant advancements to its VCS fabric portfolio, including a new high port count switch and new SDN software.

that are designed to significantly improve IT agility and help customers migrate to the New IP. These solutions enable efficient, automated, scale-out network architectures with new, advanced programmability and orchestration to deliver network resources on demand.

The new Brocade VDX 6940 is a high-density fixed form factor switch that can be deployed as a spine or leaf switch in dynamic, scale-out data center architectures. It supports Brocade's VCS Logical Chassis capabilities, enabling up to 48 switches to be managed as a single logical switch. SDN capabilities enable advanced programmability, virtualization, cloud orchestration, and DevOps integration.  Its low-latency, cut-through, non-blocking architecture delivers line-rate performance at all packet sizes to accommodate varying traffic patterns and profiles.

Brocade said the on-chip buffer design in these switches delivers high throughput, a critical capability for environments such as Hadoop.  The company's Zero-Touch Provisioning capabilities enable it to be configured and operational in less than one minute. Two models are offered: the Brocade VDX 6940-36Q offers 36 40GbE QSFP+ ports. Through a breakout cable, each 40 GbE port can be broken into four 10GbE ports for a total of 144 10GbE connections. This represents 40 percent more port capacity than any other network switch in its class. The Brocade VDX 6940-144S provides up to 96 10GbE ports, along with 12 40GbE or four 100GbE ports in a 2U form factor.


"As the rise of the third platform -- including cloud, mobile, social, and Big Data -- accelerates, organizations are encountering new requirements and challenges that cannot be addressed with legacy network architectures that were designed for client-server environments," said Jason Nolet, senior vice president of Data Center Switching, Routing, and Analytics Products Group at Brocade. "Networks must transform from a siloed, static design to an agile, on-demand infrastructure that is automated via data center orchestration frameworks and programmability."


  • SDN Support: Brocade VDX switches will integrate with the Brocade Vyatta Controller, as well as third-party OpenDaylight-compliant controllers, through support of OpenFlow 1.3 to enable a smooth migration to SDN.
  • Cloud Orchestration: In April, Brocade will add VCS Layer 3 functionality to OpenStack Kilo release. The new capabilities include Inter VLAN routing allowing tenants on separate networks to communicate and Layer 3 ACLs to enabling Firewall as a Service (FWaaS).
  • DevOps: Brocade will support Puppet and Python scripting across the Brocade VDX switch family with the release of NOS 6.0.
  • Expanded VMware Integration: Brocade continues to expand its strategic partnership with VMware to enhance the integration of virtualized servers and NSX-based virtual networks with physical networking infrastructure. Brocade is introducing an IP Analytics and Content Pack for VMware vRealize Operations to help simplify operations management across physical and virtual resources. 


http://newsroom.brocade.com/press-releases/brocade-advances-data-center-agility-with-new-vcs--nasdaq-brcd-1173449#.VNQ57P6-2-0