News

posted on 18 March 2008 15:41

HP, which just announced a slew of datacentre products, has signed with Brocade to resell its DCX datacentre backbone switch. HP joins NetApp which signed to OEM the switch at the end of last month.

The DCX is a backbone switch for an entire data centre and links servers, storage and networking resources. It is compatible with existing Brocade and McData storage area network (SAN) fabric switches and director products. Cisco has its own datacentre switch offering. Both it and Brocade foresee an all-Ethernet datacentre foundation network with storage Fibre Channel traffic layered onto Ethernet via the FCOE protocol.

Cisco has picked up Pillar Data as a reseller of its switch.

Rick Steffens, StorageWorks Division VP at HP, said: “HP and Brocade are strategically aligned when it comes to offering our customers the best in scalability and performance in even the most demanding storage environments." That's music to Brocade's ears.

Steffens added: “HP's storage hardware, software and services combined with Brocade's DCX Backbone provides a flexible and easy-to-deploy connection point for converging and exchanging data between diverse data centre networks.”

Ian Whiting, Brocade Data Center Infrastructure Division's VP and GM had this view on the deal: “The Brocade DCX Backbone is an excellent consolidation platform for HP/Brocade customers looking to implement server virtualisation and gain greater performance, scalability and cost savings from their existing data centre networking investments. (It) is interoperable with existing architectures and supports both developing and established protocols, including Fibre Channel, Converged Enhanced Ethernet, and iSCSI.”

Having deals with blue chip suppliers such as HP and NetApp must mean a great deal to Brocade and represents important confirmations of the DCX' appeal.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}