Brocade to support next-gen FC standard

. Brocade solutions currently represent 67.5 percent of the FC switch and director market share. As a result, the company’s endorsement of the standard is a key element of widespread adoption. 16 Gbps FC is a key technology to support increasing data center scale and solid state storage, and it will be critical to scaling new virtualized workloads based on its proven performance, reliability and simplicity.

Brocade’s commitment to 16 Gbps FC builds upon its market leadership in FC storage networking solutions, which includes the flagship Brocade DCX Backbone family along with SAN directors, switches and host bus adapters (HBAs) — the most complete offering in the industry. Brocade has also led the industry through every FC technology cycle, including the evolution from 1, 2, 4, 8 and now 16 Gbps technologies.

“Brocade’s heritage is data center networking, and we continue to be a leader in traditional and transformational networking solutions,” said Ali Ahmar, Regional Sales Manager, MENA, Brocade. “Brocade serves as the Chair of the INCITS TC T11 committee and is committed to providing standards-based technologies. With the introduction of the new 16 Gbps Fibre Channel standard, we are effectively future-proofing the data center to enable hyper-scale virtualization for emerging workloads and private storage clouds, while protecting billions of dollars in existing infrastructure investments.”

Brocade expects to offer the industry’s first end-to-end 16 Gbps FC product portfolio in the first half of 2011, delivering unmatched simplicity in managing data-intensive applications, investment protection for existing SAN infrastructure and non-stop networking with field-proven “five nines” availability.