The Brocade StorageX suite of solutions uses global namespace technology to unify heterogeneous file storage distributed throughout the enterprise. Using this namespace technology, Brocade StorageX presents users with a single, logical view of distributed files, thereby enabling intuitive access to data.

The namespace does for file storage what DNS does for networking: It enables clients to access files without knowing their location (just as users access Web sites without knowing the IP addresses). In addition, this technology enables administrators to aggregate file storage across heterogeneous, geographically distributed storage platforms and treat it like a single file system. This transparency can span an entire corporate environment and make the data's physical location irrelevant to users.

Brocade StorageX uses namespace technology to provide value-added storage services, including file sharing, disaster recovery, data migration, server consolidation, and data lifecycle management.

The basic infrastructure needed to implement namespace technology already exists in Windows and UNIX operating systems. That means organizations do not have to change their current environments in order to deploy a namespace. They can implement namespace technology by using Microsoft DFS in Windows environments, and by using Automounter and NIS+ in UNIX environments.

Changes in business conditions, corporate objectives, technology infrastructure, and quality of business applications have significantly increased the requirements for data protection. Traditional replication solutions have not kept up with current business priorities for simplified management, centralized control, policy-driven execution, and prioritization of data for protection. As a result, Brocade has created specialized replication software to address these business priorities.

The Brocade StorageX suite of solutions features byte-level file differential replication technology designed specifically to meet current data protection priorities such as:

• Minimizing client downtime during planned and unplanned outages
• Centralizing the management of a distributed data protection architecture
• Enforcing prioritization of data availability to optimize resources used for data protection
• Reducing overall cost of data protection while maintaining high data availability

By reducing the amount of data to replicate-replicating only the changes at the byte level rather than replicating the entire file-this technology streamlines replication tasks and enables data protection solutions that are cost-effective to deploy yet enterprise-wide in scope for optimized resource utilization.

This technology also provides unique benefits for moving data across WANs, including:

• Distributing data files nightly from a central location to field locations
• Sending application upgrades from headquarters to branch offices
• Migrating data from remote locations that are being consolidated to a central location
• Centralizing remote office data for backup, thereby eliminating distributed tape hardware
• Collecting log files regularly from Web servers in multiple locations
• Replicating data from a primary data center to a disaster recovery site, such that users accessing the data center can fail over to the secondary site