Network storage solutions company Brocade, has introduced new products and service enhancements that will tackle customer challenges in the areas such as performance, data protection, and virtualization that will span the company's Storage Area Network (SAN), File Area Network (FAN), and Professional Services offerings. The company claims that the new solutions improve performance, security, and data management.
Brad O'Neill, senior analyst (Taneja Group) said," As the next-generation data center evolves, Brocade is addressing the needs for scalable and high-performance connectivity, simple yet comprehensive management, and absolute investment protection."
According to the press release, the new features include SAN solutions that enhance data center management, security, scalability, distance connectivity, virtualization and interoperability. The solutions include a number of enhancements to the company's Enterprise Fabric Connectivity Manager (EFCM) and Brocade Fabric Manager. These are enterprise class software that helps customers increase efficiency in managing and securing their SAN infrastructure. The Key enhancements include Advanced Call Home for Brocade EFCM and performance monitoring functionality for Brocade Fabric Manager.
It also includes FC10-6 director blade providing the capability to interconnect systems between remote sites for high-performance business continuity and disaster recovery applications. Fast write acceleration capabilities available on both the Brocade 48000 router blade (the Brocade FR4-18i) and the Brocade 7500 routing platform. It is said to boost enterprise data protection by improving performance for many remote disaster recovery applications, such as disk mirroring, by up to 200%.
The Access Gateway, a virtualization technology mentioned in the release enables interoperability between classic Brocade switches and legacy McDATA switches, and is said to be available on the entry-level Brocade 200E Switch. It reduces the number of devices to manage in SAN, enabling customers to scale their SAN with servers or storage devices without adding management complexity.
FAN solutions include Brocade StorageX (Version 6.0) that provides additional capabilities for migration of files in both CIFS (Windows) and NFS (UNIX) environments throughout the enterprise. Brocade File Lifecycle Manger (FLM) 4.0 is said to ensure that users have continuous access to data by enabling administrators to more easily automate file migration and restoration without system downtime.
All of the new Brocade SAN and FAN products and solutions announced have been integrated into the rapidly growing Brocade Services portfolio.
