Network Appliance joins with Brocade to strengthen data centre offering
Network Appliance has announced an extension to its existing relationship with Brocade that will strengthen the NetApp storage and data management offering and further enable customers to enhance their data centres. As a result of this relationship, NetApp will OEM the Brocade DCX Backbone as part of its data centre portfolio.
The Brocade DCX Backbone is a new class of high-performance data centre networking products designed to address the demanding requirements of evolving data centres.
The Brocade DCX Backbone plays a key role in delivering a data centre fabric (DCF) architecture that enables customers to enhance their data centre infrastructures for maximum performance, flexibility, and investment protection.
In addition, it supports important industry trends such as server virtualisation and reducing power consumption.
As a result, the Brocade DCX Backbone is an ideal complement to NetApp's unified storage platforms, including the FAS3000 series and FAS6000 series, providing customers with the ability to achieve increased service levels; higher asset utilisation; and greater data centre power, space, and cooling efficiencies.
"Brocade and NetApp are aligned in our commitment to helping data centre managers succeed with the next generation of networked storage solutions by providing comprehensive and flexible deployment options," said Ian Whiting, vice president and general manager of the Brocade Data Centre Infrastructure division.
"With the Brocade DCX, this strategy includes a future path to improved Fibre Channel or Ethernet interoperability and consolidation. The advanced and unified capabilities of NetApp storage solutions coupled with the Brocade DCX provide customers with industry-leading interoperability and investment protection."
"The Brocade DCX Backbone is a great match for NetApp's unified storage platform," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions Marketing for NetApp.
"With our enterprise customers placing so much emphasis on rationalising and virtualising their data centre infrastructure, the combination of the DCX Backbone with our FAS systems will be instrumental in helping them realise their objectives. Furthermore, our ongoing relationship with Brocade continues to enhance our SAN interoperability and data centre storage portfolio."
Playing an integral role in the evolution of the data centre, the Brocade DCX Backbone is more scalable than traditional SAN directors, accommodating more virtualised applications to streamline IT processes.
With a high density footprint, the Brocade DCX Backbone less power and delivers five times the bandwidth, dramatically reducing energy costs.
The Brocade DCX Backbone also provides an adaptive platform for ensuring quality of service (QoS) to virtualised applications and data in server, networking, and storage complexes.
In addition, the Brocade DCX Backbone better enables NetApp customers to consolidate their data management and storage environments into logical, multiprotocol infrastructures for both Fibre Channel and Ethernet SANs and supports existing and emerging protocols.
Furthermore, it enables interoperability between Brocade, Brocade M-Series, and other vendor fabrics to help maximise ROI.
The Brocade DCX Backbone is immediately available globally from NetApp and NetApp authorised channel partners.
4-Mar-2008