The all-flash data center is here and the next wave of storage innovation is rapidly approaching. Next-generation NVMe storage will dramatically accelerate flash, however it will expose infrastructure limitations. The network will become the new bottleneck and enterprises need to re-evaluate their existing SANs. Brocade Gen 6 Fibre Channel is purpose-built to handle the low-latency and monitoring requirements for NVMe storage. New software optimization reduces latency by nearly 15% for Gen 6 platforms and enhanced integrated network sensors provide new insight into network health and performance of NVMe traffic.
The rapid pace of innovation in the data center is increasing the complexity of managing the infrastructure. More time is spent on deployment, configuration, and troubleshooting tasks to maintain service-level agreements and keep up with demands. Brocade automation is powerful for DevOps, simple with Ansible, and open for communities. It leverages open-source technology to automate and orchestrate repetitive tasks, enable IT organizations to significantly improve their efficiency, and decrease the risk of operational mistakes.
"Brocade is modernizing Fibre Channel and developing innovative capabilities to enable our customers to take advantage of disruptive storage technology like NVMe and automation,” said
“As datacenters transition to the latest NVMe-based flash technologies, storage network infrastructure upgrades will be required to maintain scalability growth,” said
With more than 20 years of storage networking experience,
Brocade automation solutions are based on these pillars:
- REST APIs available directly from the switch automates repetitive daily tasks, such as fabric inventory, provisioning, and operational state monitoring
- Open source PyFOS, a Python scripting language simplifies common SAN management practices
- Ansible integration enables automation and orchestration across the entire infrastructure
“When attempting to keep pace with today’s IT challenges, simply increasing budgets is a losing scenario. This is a major reason why, according to our research, automation and orchestration initiatives have become one of the top data center modernization priorities,” says
The Brocade Gen 6 product family now includes the Brocade G630 switch and the Brocade FC32-64 blade. The Brocade G630 is the industry’s highest density fixed-port switch, supporting up to 128 ports in a 2U form factor. The FC32-64 is the industry’s highest port density blade that includes 64 32 Gbps ports and scales the Brocade X6 Director up to 512 ports. These scalable, high-density solutions are designed for the all-flash data center to support growth for demanding workloads and data center consolidation.
The high-density switch and blade extends IO Insight advanced monitoring for NVMe over Fibre Channel. IO Insight leverages integrated sensors to provide deep visibility into the IO performance of both SCSI and NVMe flash storage to gain unparalleled insight into potential issues and help maintain service levels. This enhanced visibility enables quick identification of degraded application performance at host and storage tiers reducing time to resolution.
Industry Support for Gen 6 Fibre Channel
“The reliability, scalability and performance of Fibre Channel makes it the most prevalent fabric for flash storage today. And as enterprise datacenters continue adopting flash storage, NVMe will be the next wave of flash technology that will deliver even lower latency. The Brocade NVMe-ready solutions with Fabric Vision capabilities, combined with QLogic’s Gen 6 FC-NVMe supported adapters with StorFusion™ features, enable end-to-end traffic monitoring and QoS to drive performance efficiencies needed to power this evolution.”
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“The Emulex Connectivity Division is excited to support these new innovations focused on increasing the performance and manageability of enterprise storage networking. Combining the new capabilities in the Brocade switches with our family of Emulex Gen 6 Fibre Channel HBAs will offer customers a solution that delivers the low latency and high bandwidth required for modern data centers."
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“As we accelerate digital transformation projects for customers with ETERNUS all-flash storage, it’s important to make sure that entire infrastructures have the end-to-end data throughput capacity. That’s why we are partnering with
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"Every day the systems and software that power business become more closely aligned. It is imperative that each part of the data path be properly configured or data efficiency, availability and response times suffer. To ensure that customers are happy and IT teams get the return on investments they expect, automation is becoming increasingly important. Using the Brocade G630 with the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) F series and G series and Hitachi Automation Director (HAD), organizations can orchestrate delivery of the systems and software that power their business. Combined, they enable IT leaders to deliver a worry-free infrastructure and predictable customer experience."
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“In today’s frenetic and dynamic technology landscape, people and systems must be adaptable and able to deliver more with less. To this end, HPE and
- Marty Lans, HPE GM Storage Infrastructure and Connectivity
“Broadcom’s NVMe-ready, new high-density Fibre Channel SAN solutions with advanced automation capabilities are key for today's modern data center. They perfectly complement the performance of
- Meng Guangbin, President of Huawei Storage Product Line,
"Broadcom’s announcement of automation capabilities and integration with Ansible means organizations which implement Infinidat’s data storage systems with Brocade storage networks empower their DevOps teams to simplify their organization’s operations and increase productivity by incorporating their storage infrastructure into their automation strategy. Having the right network augments the benefits of the scalability and efficiency of our storage systems, and this announcement further defines
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“Intelligent storage and networks are driving the world to evolve.
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“The all-flash autonomous datacenter requires datacenter automation, orchestration and assured data access to enable organizations to stay focused on scaling their core business. Broadcom’s Fibre Channel products are the optimal network infrastructure for all-flash datacenters, and today’s announcement of new high-density Gen 6 Fibre Channel products, automation technology, and enhanced NVMe capabilities provides organizations which partner with Kaminario and
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"Through our continued collaboration with Broadcom, NetApp is committed to delivering modern SAN solutions that give customers the most efficient access, management, and utilization of critical data. Combining NetApp's enterprise-class flash storage with the newly expanded Brocade Gen 6 Fibre Channel portfolio enables customers to build the most scalable modern SAN solutions that truly capitalize on innovation in NVMe over Fibre Channel."
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"Broadcom’s new automation capabilities, high-density Gen 6 Fibre Channel products, and enhancements to NVMe over Fibre Channel provide our joint customers a modern, user-friendly infrastructure with incredible performance. Our joint customers can be confident they have implemented a solution optimized for the needs of their data centers today and tomorrow.”
- Rajiev Rajavasireddy, Vice President of Product Management and Solutions,
“Our partnership with
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Availability
The Brocade G630 switch, FC32-64 blade for the Brocade X6 director, and new NVMe and automation capabilities are available now through
Visit www.broadcom.com/brocade to learn more about Brocade Fibre Channel networking solutions.
About
Press Contact:
Corporate Communications
david.szabados@broadcom.com
Telephone: 1-408-433-7848