New Switch Delivers Industry’s Highest Port Density and Improved Scale-Out; New Software Offers Greater Choice for SDN, Cloud Orchestration and DevOps Initiatives to Support the New IP
In keeping with the company’s promise of helping enterprises and service providers migrate from legacy network architectures that were designed for client-server environments to agile, on-demands, efficient, automated and scale-out network architectures, Brocade has introduced significant enhancements to its VCS Fabric portfolio including the launch of Brocade VDX 6940, the industry’s highest-density fixed form factor switch, which is designed for dynamic, scale-out data centre architectures.
Alongside, it has also introduced several software initiatives so that customers can seamlessly integrate a Brocade VDX network infrastructure with the rest of their data centre ecosystem through advanced programmability, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and virtualization support, cloud orchestration, and DevOps integration. Software enhancements and the Brocade VDX 6940 switches will be available beginning in March, with a starting price of $27,995.
“Brocade VCS Fabric technology provides today’s data centres with unmatched automation, efficiency, and agility – absolute requirements for networks in the face of today’s social, big data, cloud and mobility trends. Simple, centralized management with zero-touch provisioning helps create highly scalable, flexible, and resilient environments. VCS fabrics deliver a software-driven infrastructure to enhance IT agility and enable organizations to transition smoothly to elastic networks in highly virtualized and cloud environments. The new VDX 6940 and software enhancements is another step in Brocade’s journey to help organizations break the status quo and move from siloed, static-design networks to the New IP.”
The new Brocade VDX 6940 Switch provides the most efficient fixed-form port density on the market to help data centre networks maximize performance with minimal cost. These switches are designed to simplify network architecture, help reduce operational and capital expenses, and deliver line-rate performance on all ports, for all packet sizes. Ideal for building Ethernet fabrics in demanding environments, the Brocade VDX 6940 is available as a 40 GbE optimized switch in a 1U form factor or a 10 GbE optimized switch with up to 100 GbE uplinks in a 2U form factor.
With Brocade VCS Fabric technology, the Brocade VDX 6940 simplifies network design and operations for both cloud and Big Data network fabrics. Features like zero-touch provisioning dramatically reduces deployment time and enables organizations to scale-out the network non-disruptively. VCS Logical Chassis, self-forming and self-healing fabrics, and Auto-Fabric Provisioning simplify operations and streamline configuration. Each switch supports multiple storage connectivity options, including FCoE, iSCSI, and NAS storage.
Software Enhancements
The upcoming release of Brocade Network OS (NOS) 6.0 will allow for Brocade VDX switches to integrate with Brocade Vyatta Controller, an SDN controller, as well as third-party OpenDaylight-compliant controllers, through support of OpenFlow 1.3 to enable a smooth migration to SDN. With the release of NOS 6.0, Brocade will also support Puppet and Python scripting across the Brocade VDX switch family to enable network automation and enhanced agility in support of the DevOps movement. For cloud orchestration functionality, 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). And finally, available today via the VMware Solutions Exchange, Brocade offers an IP Analytics and Content Pack for VMware vRealize Operations to help simplify operations management across physical and virtual resources. This approach provides enhanced automation and analytics to help ensure that service levels and cost efficiencies are maintained.
