By Varun Aggarwal, CRN, July 14, 2010, 1000 hrs
The battle in the converged networking space gets fiercer with Brocade entering the arena with its Brocade One architecture after Cisco’s UCS and Juniper’s Project Status launch. Mostly an OEM-led player, Brocade now seems serious with its direct go-to- market approach. To strengthen its India distribution, Brocade has signed on Redington for its Brocade One and IP-range of products. For its SAN range of connectivity products, Brocade will continue to work with Renaissance Softech and Transition Systems.
Executing on the Brocade One architecture, Brocade will also offer a comprehensive suite of solutions (in support of converged fabrics and Ethernet networking) that includes new product offerings, support and professional consulting services under Brocade Converged Fabric Services. The products will include virtual cluster switching (VCS) switches, an operating system called Brocade Network OS, and several management tools. VCS is capable of supporting up to 10,000 virtual machines and roughly 1,000 10G ports.
A new diagnostic and assessment utility called Brocade NET Health has been introduced for customers to gauge the efficiency of their networks and measure them against industry-best practices. The company has also introduced a new training and certification program designed to educate Brocade customers and partners about unified fabric technologies.
All of the new converged fabric products and services will be available by Q12011.
Brocade will leverage Redington’s SI relationships to promote the suite of products under Brocade One. “While we will lead in creating demand for converged networking by doing CIO events and direct marketing, we will also leverage Redington’s reach to jointly market our products,” said Ashis Guha, Country Manager, Brocade. In addition, the company will use Redington to reach tier-2 and tier-3 cities.
Brocade will be launching a comprehensive training program for its partners for the new product range. “This will cover not just the IP partners but also the traditional SAN partners, thus leveraging the company’s entire partner ecosystem to sell its converged networking portfolio,” informed Guha.
Brocade further announced a range of HP-branded Brocade 8Gbps Fibre Channel data center and server connectivity products, and a virtualization solution bundle. The new solution includes Brocade 8Gbps Fibre Channel HBA for HP BladeSystem cClass, HP StorageWorks P2000 G3 modular smart array virtualization SAN starter kit, and HP Storage-Works B-series Data Center SAN Director 64-port 8Gbps Fibre Channel blade.
Guha informed that Brocade and HP have already achieved the milestone of shipping seven million HP StorageWorks B-series Fibre Channel ports till date. |