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Brocade Unveils the Industry’s First IP Storage Switch for EMC Connectrix

Expanded OEM Relationship with EMC Delivers Dedicated Storage Networks that Improve Performance, Resiliency and Agility for New IP Workloads.

BrocadeBrocade® (NASDAQ: BRCD), the leader in storage fabric networking solutions, today expanded its longstanding OEM relationship with EMC Corporation by adding Brocade VCS™ Ethernet fabric solutions to EMC’s Connectrix® family of network switches, creating the industry’s first network switch designed for IP storage. Available now, the Connectrix VDX-6740B IP storage switch establishes a resilient, agile and easily-deployed foundation for EMC storage, cloud, deduplication and backup and recovery systems.

“Legacy IP network designs were never intended for today’s New IP applications, such as cloud, mobile, social and big data,” said Edgar Dias, Regional Director – India, 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 critical nature 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.

“As enterprises transition from the 2nd to the 3rd Platform, there is need for a dedicated IP Storage Network solution which provides the requisite infrastructure to address their changing storage needs. EMC Connectrix is the industry leader for delivering highly available, high performance and easily managed SANs and the introduction of the Connectrix VDX-6740B will enable the EMC Storage platforms to support customer mission critical data and applications more effectively,” said, Rajesh Janey, President, India & SAARC, EMC Corporation. “EMC and Brocade have been close partners for over 15 years, delivering excellent products and world class support and the EMC Connectrix VDX-6740B is a testimony of how this partnership extends direct customer and Channel market reach.”

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 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.

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 software delivers actionable performance analysis and enables customers to quickly identify and resolve performance and capacity issues.