Brocade unveils its roapmap for the year ahead

Is convergence more about vendors talking than customer deployment?
Considering the power of convergence, vendors are working on redesigning their
strategies. During its Technology Day at New York recently, Brocade
unveiled its
roadmap for 2010, and one of its clear emphasis was on leveraging convergence.
The company's big plans include developing all the protocols and components in
its portfolio. Its 10GB Ethernet and top-of-rack switches will get more ports,
and also there are plans for 40 GbE and 100 GbE support for core switches.

According to Data Search, more than 90EB digital data will be created by
2010. The installed virtual machines are set to see 10x growth by 2012, implying
the number of applications is going up rapidly, in turn making the networks more
complex.

But as Brocade's CTO, Dave Stevens puts it: industry manages complexity. So
what is the solution to simplify networks? On the Technology Day, the networking
solutions provider introduced Brocade One, the unifying network architecture and
strategy that enables customers to simplify the complexity of virtualizing their
applications.

By removing network layers, simplifying management and protecting existing
technology investments, Brocade One helps customers migrate to a world where
information and services are available anywhere in the cloud. "We are walking in
times when the entire network is the data center
," said Stevens.

L-R: Dave Stevens, CTO; Jason Nolet, VP, data center and Data Center ">enterprise network ; Ken Cheng, VP, service provider products; Joe Ammirato, senior director, enterprise; John McHugh, chief marketing officer at Brocade Technology Day 2010

Of the view that IT infrastructure will eventually evolve to a highly
virtualized, services-on-demand state enabled through the cloud, Brocade based
its vision on belief that the process, an evolutionary path towards this desired
end-state, is as important as reaching the end-state. This evolution has started
inside the data center, with Brocade One solution. It commits unmatched
simplicity, investment protection, application optimization and 24x7 networking.

Brocade One architecture execution will include an offering of suite of
solutions in support of converged fabrics and Ethernet networking. The solution
provider is getting ready with a set of new product offerings, including a
converged fabric switch, converged fabric operating system and converged fabric
management tools. It is also focusing on new channel partner specialization for
partners offering the new converged fabric solutions as part of their portfolio.

Offerings like new support and professional consulting services-for converged
fabric solutions, Brocade Converged Fabric Services, from Brocade Global
Services, diagnostic and assessment utility called Brocade NET Health, which
will help customers gauge the efficiency of their networks and measure them
against industry best practices and new training and certification program
designed to educate Brocade customers and partners on the new converged fabric
technologies-are included in execution strategy of Brocade One architecture.

Brocade's VP, service provider products, Ken Cheng, making a presentation

Brocade intends to usher in converged data center fabrics through Virtual
Cluster Switching (VCS), a class of technologies designed to address
requirements unique to virtualized data centers. VCS will help customers
seamlessly transition their existing network architectures to converged data
center fabrics. The solution provider at present is building 100 G and is likely
to start free trials later in the year-feels that there is a huge opportunity in
the service provider space.

"There are umpteen opportunities worldwide, closing the gap between service
demand and revenue is critical," said Ken Cheng, VP, service provider products,
Brocade. He feels application optimization is a network imperative, and
operators should be able to leverage transitions of virtualization and cloud.

Brocade's strategic focus is on investments and technologies that will aid
future innovation like creating open network application platform. "The
company's strategy for its service provider business is to deliver scalable
infrastructure with compelling economics, enable cloud based services with
end-to-end SLA," Cheng said.

Heena Jhingan

heenaj@cybermedia.co.in

The author was hosted by Brocade in New York