Brocade Unveils 10G Ethernet Blades

According to Bill Dunmire, director of product marketing for data center networks, the ability to provide customers with full access to wire-speed performance is a hallmark of the Brocade architecture, which unlike rival architecture does not introduce any overhead between the applications and the switches they run over.

The new Brocade offerings are blades that can be inserted into the company’s existing line of NetIron MLX series and DCX backbone series switches. The Brocade 8x10G-M Series blade is designed primarily for carrier networks, while the Brocade 8x10G-D series is aimed primarily at data center sites. The two new blades double the number of ports in the NetIron chassis by making available up to 256 ports without sacrificing performance, said Dunmire.

Brocade is also making available a 64-port, 8 gigabit-per-second fibre channel blade for its DCX backbone that can support up to 512 ports.

As more latency-sensitive applications, ranging from virtual servers to unified communications, attempt to share network resources, Dunmire said IT organizations will soon have a critical need for all the 10 Gigabit Ethernet they can find. That’s why it’s critical, he said, for IT organizations to select networking products that make available full wire speed bandwidth.

Dunmire added that these issues are also why Brocade includes bottleneck detection software with its products to help network managers identify potential problems before the adversely affect applications.