Brocade Storage Networking Built for XtremIO All-Flash Arrays

Brocade announced that its Fibre Channel and IP-based storage networking technologies will be used by EMC in customer solutions based on the new XtremIO 4.0 all-flash storage arrays that EMC unveiled on Monday. With the version 4.0 software upgrade for EMC XtremIO arrays, larger all-flash configurations are possible and will enable petabyte scale-out storage consolidation across all workloads.

Brocade said its storage network switches and related storage management software will be branded and sold by EMC as part of the EMC Connectrix family. Josh Goldstein, vice president of marketing and product management for EMC XtremIO, noted, "EMC Connectrix Gen 5 Fibre Channel and IP storage networking solutions, based on Brocade storage fabric technologies, have become a bedrock for XtremIO customers for better enabling the new wave of consolidated database, analytics, private/hybrid cloud, VDI, and business application workloads."

Recent Wikibon research shows that flash is now cheaper than disk for active data, and that flash is a better foundation for the next generation of big data applications. Brocade cited Gartner research that stated, "By 2019, 50 percent of traditional general-purpose storage arrays used for low-latency, high-performance workloads will be replaced by SSAs [solid-state arrays]."

Brocade storage networking technologies used in EMC customer solutions include Gen 5 Directors and switches, VDX 6740 switches for IP storage, 7840 extension switches for fibre channel and IP storage, Fabric Vision technology, and Network Advisor for fibre channel and IP storage.

Brocade also announced that its Gen 5 Fibre Channel SAN technologies are an integral part of the new EMC VSPEX with VMAX3 100K converged infrastructure solution that was revealed at EMC World recently.