Brocade, a provider of network solutions, advanced its vision of software-defined networking, with new switches and routers designed for cloud and virtualization workloads. The vendor began shipping a new switching platform intended to enhance data center network simplicity, efficiency and resiliency. The Brocade VDX 8770 Switch, along with VCS Fabric technology enhancements, is designed for enterprises and service providers striving to both simplify and scale-out their data center infrastructure.
Brocade also announced what it calls the industry's highest core router density, with the introduction of a new 24-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) module for Brocade MLXe Series routers, part of its software-defined networking (SDN) strategy.
The Brocade VDX 8770 and VCS Fabric technology deliver a simplified data center network, the vendor says. The new releases are targeted at data centers supporting ever-expanding virtualized and cloud requirements. Ethernet fabrics built on VCS Fabric technology accelerate application deployment and enable faster virtual machine (VM) migrations through zero-touch VM discovery, VM mobility and VM port configuration migration. Using VCS fabrics, customers can manage dozens of switches as a single logical device.
With a 4 Tbps backplane, the Brocade VDX 8770 chassis is designed to support future technologies such as dense 100 GbE, providing ample performance capacity for years to come. The Brocade VDX 8770 is also engineered for emerging software-defined networking architectures, with flexible hardware support for network virtualization through technologies such as VXLAN overlay networking.
Brocade's MLXe is designed for massive increases in data traffic -- driven by video, mobile devices and the cloud, the vendor adds. This increased workload has created the need for new network architectures from data centers to the service provider core. MLXe has the capability to scale up to 768 ports of 10 GbE in a single chassis. The new module triples existing 10 GbE density and is purpose-built for high-capacity, high-performance data center core and service provider networks. Brocade also introduced the 12.5 software release for Brocade ADX Application Delivery Switches, delivering new multitenancy capabilities.
The MLXe "Network operators are challenged to scale their networks and manage increasing complexity - with more routers, more subnets and massive dynamic flows," says Ken Cheng, vice president of service provider and application delivery products at Brocade. "The Brocade MLXe Core Router with the new 24-port 10 GbE module and SDN technology will enable them to significantly scale their core networks to do more while greatly reducing network complexity and cost."
More information is available at the Brocade website.