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Technology Platforms

Brocade technology platforms provide industry leadership and incorporate intelligence directly into enterprise data center fabric environments—enabling highly available, scalable, and secure environments for storage applications.

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Enterprises have always required a high degree of reliability and scalability in their storage networking solutions. But as today's SAN designs grow increasingly complex, simplicity and security become even more important for improving uptime and protecting corporate information.
Brocade Storage Network Services in Enterprise Operating System (E/OS) 8.0 can help enterprises achieve this advanced level of efficiency while protecting the data that is essential to their enterprise. E/OS delivers comprehensive device intelligence - it can help you diagnose and troubleshoot potential problems and control access to the SAN. Value-added services are also available to further secure and optimize the performance of your storage network.

Highlights

  • Deliver industry-leading diagnostic and security features
  • Help you maintain stable, secure and scalable storage networks
  • Provide intelligence for improved storage network management
  • Utilize industry-standard methodology

VALUE-ADDED SERVICES

Value-added services are available as licensable features of Brocade Storage Network Services, including enhanced security and performance optimization features.

Security Software: To help secure your storage network and address federal and state compliance requirements, authentication and binding add additional layers of security to ports, devices and fabrics.

Open Trunking: Optimize the performance of your SAN by Load balancing traffic across all available ISLs. Open Trunking increases useable ports by optimizing current ISL utilization and freeing up more ports for device connections. Through Open Trunking, your organization can lower your total cost of ownership.

FICON Management Server: Allows management of the switch via the in-band accessed Control Unit Port, or CUP. This capability is used in mainframe environments where multiple FICON-capable devices are managed by a centralized application.

FICON Control Unit Port (CUP) Partitioning: FICON CUP Partitioning provides even greater management control and security in FICON SANs by isolating access to ports to only those hosts that are zoned with the device. This allows access to resources to be partitioned out to multiple hosts in a flexible manner that is consistent with the zoning configuration regulating device connectivity.

Full Volatility: Ensures that your company's confidential information is not stored on the switch or director. This optional feature is designed to support high security environments where no data may be retained in a power off state. The switch or director is configured so that no frame data is stored after power off.

Node Port Identifier Virtualization (NPIV): Allows a single device port to support many virtual devices, enabling you to run multiple processes on your host. Up to 256 virtual addresses per N_port, can be allocated without impacting the existing hardware implementation. This feature is particularly beneficial in mainframe environments where hundreds of Linux partitions can share a physical channel.

Brocade Enterprise OS supports the following Brocade devices:

Technology and Architecture Resources

Browse a complete listing of all Brocade resources. View All Resources

Abstract:

This document summarizes equipment known to be compatible with the Brocade® product family. Products named in the compatibility tables reflect equipment tested at Brocade or tested externally.

Abstract:

This matrics includes Brocade M-Class directors, switches, and routers as well as legacy McDATA SAN products.

Abstract:

Archive: This document represents the last version of the Brocade Compatibility Matrix that included 2 Gbps devices and is provided here for your convenience.

Abstract:

This matric includes Brocade M-Class directors, switches, and routers as well as legacy McDATA SAN products.

Abstract:

This guide discusses topics related to mixing FICON and FCP devices in the same Storage Area Network (SAN), focusing on issues that end users need to address. These include specifics for the IBM zEnterprise System, as well as the fabric elements to consider when evaluating a FICON/FCP intermix solution.

Abstract:

Providing server connectivity products is the next step in fulfilling Brocade’s mission to deliver enterprise-class, end-to-end storage networking solutions. With Brocade server connectivity solutions, Brocade is now extending fabric-based services to data center server platforms for dependable and high-performance storage access.

Abstract:

To realize the full value of an investment in the zEnterprise requires a transformation in the infrastructure supporting your new mainframe. This paper explores a thoughtfully planned and managed transition from a mixed ESCON and FICON infrastructure to a pure FICON infrastructure, enabling a smarter, centralized, cloud-optimized data center for the future.

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Describes how to migrate from Brocade EFCM to Brocade DCFM including planning, installation and deployment, and post-deployment configuration.

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Discusses 16 Gbps Fiber Channel and how it improves throughput in Storage Area Networks to reduce Inter-Switch Link counts, improve application performance, ease management, and reduce power consumption per bit.

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The guiding principles driving a new architecture for the data center include consolidation, virtualization, service-level resource allocation, and policy-based data management. These principles simplify how business exploits its data for competitive advantage in a cost-effective manner.

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Describes and illustrates scenarios that demonstrate how the Brocade DCX Backbone platform can be added non-disruptively into the core of existing SANs and new data center fabrics.

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Describes the internal architecture of the Brocade DCX Backbone and explains how best to leverage its industry-leading performance and blade flexibility to meet business requirements.

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This paper delves into the experiences of 30 IT managers who relocated their data centers, analyzing the primary drivers, issues, strategies, and lessons learned.

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The results of a benchmarking study performed in Brocade test labs demonstrate that SQL Server can be deployed on VMware ESX Server 3.5 for Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) applications in very favorable server consolidation ratios to meet corporate IT business requirements.

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This guide describes best practices for incorporating cabling in a typical data center, plus tips for selecting cabling components and information on data transmission media.

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This paper explores how key capabilities within Brocade Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM) help simplify infrastructure management.

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This paper describes the basics of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and how Brocade FCoE solutions provide greater choice in modern data centers.

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The Brocade DCX Backbone provides industry-leading performance, scalability, and investment protection, unleashing the full capabilities of IBM System z, especially IBM zEnterprise 196 (z196) solutions

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This paper examines how FICON channel architecture greatly expands the distance, throughput, and scale of implementation for IBM mainframe environments.

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This paper explores the various approaches Brocade is taking toward heterogeneous fabric connectivity following its acquisition of McDATA.

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This paper describes how FastWrite, a Brocade capability available in Brocade SAN Routers, addresses the performance issues of SCSI write operations over long-distance, high-latency links.

Abstract:

New features in Brocade Fabric OS 7.0 help increase SAN security in enterprise environments to better protect sensitive data.

Abstract:

Describes a FOS 6.2 capability: Virtual Fabrics (VFs). Using VFs, customers can partition a physical switch into multiple Logical Switches, each of which belongs to a Logical Fabric, which has independent data paths, fabric configuration (zoning, Quality of Service, fabric mode) ,and management.

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This paper examines the fundamentals and benefits of the Brocade Access Gateway, the latest evolution in Fibre Channel SAN connectivity built on blade server technology.

Abstract:

This paper explores both the technical and business reasons for implementing a switched FICON architecture instead of a direct-attached storage FICON architecture.