Brocade outlined its new “Fabric Vision” technology for simplifying SAN deployment and management and announced a new high-density fixed-configuration SAN switch in its Gen 5 portfolio of 16 Gbps Fibre Channel products.
Brocade Fabric Vision, which combines Brocade hardware, its embedded operating system (Brocade Fabric OS) and management software (Brocade Network Advisor) with the goal of helping administrators anticipate and preempt problems in the network. The solution combines diagnostics, monitoring and management capabilities. This includes:
- Policy-based tools that simplify fabric-wide threshold configuration and monitoring
- Management tools that allow administrators to identify, monitor and analyze specific application data flows, without the need for expensive, disruptive, third-party tools
- Monitoring tools that detect network congestion and latency in the fabric, providing visualization of bottlenecks and identifying exactly which devices and hosts are impacted
- Customizable health and performance dashboard views, providing all critical information in one screen
- Cable and optic diagnostic features that simplify the deployment and support of large fabrics.
The new Brocade 6520 Switch offer 96 Fibre Channel ports in a 2U form factor. In addition to Gen 5 Fibre Channel advanced functionality, reliability and performance, the density of the Brocade 6520 means fewer inter-switch links, fewer cables and fewer switches to manage. The product offers up to eight in-flight encryption and compression ports, delivering data center-to-data center security