IT Voice News-To arrest cloud-based growth opportunities and support its reseller network, Avnet Technology Solutions, the global IT solutions distributor and an operating group of Avnet, Inc., has deployed Brocade® Ethernet fabric at its two Australian data centers. The new network infrastructure, based on Brocade VDX® switches and VCS® Fabric technology, is a key building block in Avnet’s plan to fully virtualize and automate the data centers to support self-provisioning of cloud computing resources by its Australian resellers.
Avnet Technology Solutions collaborates with clients and suppliers to create and deliver services, software, and hardware solutions that address the business needs of their end-user customers. With Australia ranking among the leaders in Asia Pacific in terms of cloud service uptake, Avnet is providing its own reseller network with the opportunity to generate revenue streams based on virtualized technology.
“Avnet has a central goal to fully automate our Australian data centers and enable comprehensive network virtualization. This will enable our channel partners’ networks to self-provision their virtual machine capabilities, further reducing the costs of offering a cloud solution and providing better return on investment on networking,” said Darren Adams, vice president and general manager, Avnet Technology Solutions, Australia and New Zealand.
“The data center network is one of the key factors in achieving our ambitions, and it was serious for us to choose a high-performance and highly automated infrastructure that could fully support the transition to cloud computing for our partners’ end-user customers,” Adams added.
To provide a strong foundation for its cloud data center operations, Avnet chose to implement an Ethernet fabric that, as a single large Ethernet domain, would deliver the agility and performance required to support virtualized data centers. Requirements included 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) server access ports, operating at wire speed and with very low port-to-port latency; self-configuration and self-management capabilities; and support for both VXLAN and NVGRE, two emerging Software-Defined Networking (SDN) protocols for virtual machine mobility.
“What we put in place is leading-edge, so it was important to find a network technology partner that understands our business goals and would work with us to distribute the infrastructure and solutions to support those goals. Brocade has really come through for us both in terms of technology and support. Its SDN roadmap is very strong, which gives us a great deal of confidence about supporting both VMware and Microsoft virtualization stacks across the same infrastructure—and being able to leverage SDN service-chaining for network security,” said Adams.
To benefit from the latest Brocade virtualized data center network technology, Avnet became involved in the global pilot program for the Brocade VDX 6740 Switch, and then it became one of the earliest adopters of the new switch in the Asia Pacific region. The Brocade engineering group worked with the Avnet team in Sydney to ensure the new cloud-infrastructure was properly set up, and provided dedicated training on the new technology.
“As the momentum shifts to cloud services, there is a growing trend in Australia for vendors and partners to work closely together on virtualization initiatives. Avnet is one of the key members of the global Brocade Alliance Partner Network program and we are proud that not only do they believe in our solutions from a distribution perspective, they are totally dedicated to the benefits Brocade solutions bring to the table with their own business,” said Adam Judd, vice president for Asia Pacific, Brocade. “Avnet’s cloud capabilities will be powerful. It’s a very exciting project and Brocade is fully dedicated to seeing it through to success.”
