Brocade unveils IP Storage Switch for EMC Connectrix

“Legacy IP network designs were never intended for today’s New IP applications, such as cloud, mobile, social and big data,” said Jason Nolet, senior vice president, data center switching, routing and analytics products group, Brocade. “Through our extended partnership with EMC, customers can now realize the improved performance, resiliency and agility of a dedicated IP storage network for the growing mission criticality of their IP storage-based applications.”

EMC customers will deploy the new switch to separate IP storage traffic from other data traffic, a more reliable and efficient approach compared to legacy deployments where storage traffic and all other network traffic share the same network infrastructure.

“The rise of new workloads to support cloud, mobile and the Internet of Things requires that storage networks be able to expand and change almost instantaneously,” said Jonathan Siegal, vice president, marketing, EMC Corporation. “Dedicated networks for IP storage solve this problem by establishing the same performance, predictability, availability, and operational simplicity that we have been delivering to our Fibre Channel customers for the past 15 years.”

Enterprises are demanding more flexible, open network architectures that help fulfill the promise of IDC’s Third Platform compute model. “IP storage capacity is doubling nearly every two years, and transitioning to higher-performance, more mission-critical applications,” said Ashish Nadkarni, research director, Storage Systems and Software, at IDC. “To meet these new requirements, organizations should consider dedicated networks for IP-based storage as a better approach to align their networking infrastructures with business needs.”

Fabrics Optimized for IP Storage Now Enabled with EMC Connectrix
The EMC Connectrix VDX-6740B is a high performance, low latency IP storage switch that provides connectivity for a broad array of EMC high-end and mid-range NAS and iSCSI storage platforms. The new switch redefines agility with superior automation and simplicity, achieved through zero-touch, self-forming fabrics.

“The VDX 6740 will allow us to better guarantee application performance and availability for our VNX environment, particularly for our databases,” said Joshua Olstad, director of IT, Oyster River Cooperative School. “The network infrastructure will be quick to deploy and management will be easier than our legacy network, including the ability to move live virtual machines between servers for load balancing.”

Connectrix VDX solutions are integrated with Connectrix Manager Converged Network Edition (CMCNE), which provides unified management, monitoring and diagnostics for both IP and Fibre Channel storage networks. Integration with EMC Storage Analytics delivers actionable performance analysis and enables customers to quickly identify and resolve performance and capacity issues.

Additional EMC Connectrix VDX-6740B Details
· Connectivity for high-end and mid-range NAS and iSCSI storage platforms, including EMC’s VMAX3®, VNX®, Isilon® and XtremIO™ products
· Storage fabric connectivity for EMC VSPEX® Proven Infrastructure cloud and the EMC VSPEX BLUE hyper-converged appliance, as well as for EMC’s Data Domain™ deduplication and Avamar™ backup and recovery systems
· Patented load-balanced, multi-pathing for optimal performance and efficiency
· Deep, on-chip buffers deliver more than two-times the throughput of any other switch in its class
· Storage-class resiliency with millisecond link failover allowing I/O to continue non-disruptively after a path or link failure
· End-to-end interoperability testing with EMC storage, cloud, deduplication, backup and recovery systems through EMC’s E-Lab™ program
· Three-year hardware warranties, with options for both Premium and Enhanced support