Brocade Introduces Fabric Plug-in for OpenStack

Brocade
Communication Systems Inc. announced its support for the
OpenStack initiative and its commitment to bringing open network
solutions to enterprise and service provider customers through the
introduction of a Brocade fabric plug-in that delivers on-demand
fabric provisioning capabilities in OpenStack-based cloud
environments.

Available as a component of the Grizzly
release, the plug-in expands the attributes of the VCS fabric
technology – network automation, efficiency and elasticity – by
coupling these benefits with easy provisioning provided by OpenStack.
This will allow customers to deploy network capacity and services in
their cloud-based data centers more quickly than with legacy network
architectures and provisioning tools. This solution is a component of
the Brocade ‘On-Demand Data Center’ strategy, an approach that
depends upon automated and scalable network architecture.

"The benefit of deploying a
private or public cloud built on OpenStack is that it gives the
customer the utmost level of flexibility and control when
provisioning essential components within an open cloud architecture.
The inclusion of Brocade as a part of the Rackspace Private cloud
reference architecture addresses the desire of our customers to have
choice in their distributions," said John Igoe, VP of
Rackspace Private Cloud. "Innovative companies like Brocade, who are
committed to supporting open initiatives, enable customers to fully
capitalize on their IT investments without risk of vendor or
technology lock-in associated with proprietary platforms."

The company is also taking a role in
the OpenStack development community with the delivery of a FC
blueprint for storage networking. With the delivery of a framework
for FC zone management, it is further enabling customers to adopt
OpenStack by ensuring investments in FC SANs are protected as they
move to cloud architectures.

"Brocade is currently the only
networking vendor offering OpenStack-compatible solutions with
advanced fabric-enabled capabilities that support cloud-based,
scale-out data center infrastructures," said Jason Nolet, VP
of the data center networking group, Brocade. "In addition
to delivering OpenStack support for Brocade products that accelerate
the adoption of cloud technologies and deliver on the promise of The
On-Demand Data Center, Brocade is an active contributor to the
OpenStack development community, taking an active leadership role in
driving innovation in important areas of the framework, such as the
addition of FC SAN provisioning into OpenStack."

Red
Hat Inc. announced that Brocade is a member of the Red Hat
OpenStack cloud Infrastructure Partner Network, which is aimed at the innovation and development of the OpenStack framework.

"The Red Hat OpenStack cloud
Infrastructure Partner Network and its commercial support is an
important step as we establish a robust ecosystem aimed at
accelerating customer adoption of the Red Hat OpenStack
distribution," said Mike Werner, senior director of the
OpenStack ecosystem, Red Hat. "The expertise and networking
innovation Brocade brings to the program is a welcome addition as we
see great alignment in our respective visions."

These announcements demonstrate
Brocade’s commitment to the OpenStack community and the company’s
focus on ensuring that their data center technologies are
orchestrated within an OpenStack framework. In addition to Red Hat,
the company has partnered with other distribution vendors, such as
Rackspace and Piston cloud, to bring commercial versions of OpenStack
with support and services elements to market.

The plug-in for the Brocade VCS is
available in OpenStack Grizzly and is undergoing certification for
the Rackspace Private cloud.