Brocade enhances VCS Fabric portfolio

New innovations to the VCS fabric portfolio include the Brocade VDX 6940, the industry’s highest-density fixed form factor switch, which is designed for dynamic, scale-out data centre architectures. To facilitate rapid deployment, the switch supports Zero-Touch Provisioning capabilities, enabling it to be configured and operational in less than one minute. Unlike traditional networks where each switch is managed individually, the Brocade VDX 6940 allows customers to scale out the network without adding operational complexity. Utilising Brocade VCS Logical Chassis capabilities, customers can manage up to 48 switches as a single logical switch.
The automated approach to Brocade VDX switch deployment and operations extends beyond native VCS capabilities. 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 virtualisation support, cloud orchestration, and DevOps integration. As a result, customers can operate their data centres more holistically, accelerate innovation and ensure that network resources are readily available and automatically provisioned as new services are deployed.

“SDN is enabling network infrastructure to deliver capabilities such as automated provisioning, programmatic management, service chaining, and integration with cloud orchestration, which is helping the network overcome long-standing limitations that made it an inhibitor to business agility, IT efficiency, and overall productivity,” said Brad Casemore, research director, Data Centre Networks, at IDC. “By adding these SDN and orchestration capabilities to its Ethernet fabric portfolio, Brocade is helping its customers better align network architecture and operations with applications and developers.”

“As the rise of the third platform – including cloud, mobile, social, and Big Data – accelerates, organisations 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 Centre 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 centre orchestration frameworks and programmability.”

“Brocade’s latest VCS enhancements strike an excellent balance between the features that need to be enabled in software and hardware,” said Zeus Kerravala, founder, ZK Research. “This combination can deliver the capabilities that businesses need to build a cloud scale network.”