Brocade Integrates SAN Management Into ViPR SDS Platform

 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. announced additional integration of the company’s SAN management technology into the EMC ViPR storage platform resulting in support for larger SANs within virtualized cloud environments.

New integration for the platform combines FC routing and logical SAN (LSAN) zoning with Brocade Network Advisor SAN management software to enable policy-based automation for managing and provisioning both EMC and non-EMC storage infrastructure within medium to large enterprise SANs using the industry-standard Storage Management Initiative (SMI) interface.

Integrating FC routing and LSAN zoning with Brocade Network Advisor will help reduce data center costs and complexity for both current and future application deployments in larger SANs by taking advantage of Brocade Gen 5 FC SAN solutions enhanced with Brocade Fabric Vision technology. Brocade Network Advisor is sold by EMC as Connectrix Manager Converged Network Edition (CMCNE).

As a result of the joint efforts, EMC and Brocade’s largest SAN customers can now utilize the EMC ViPR platform to leverage existing storage infrastructures for traditional data center workloads. This complete spectrum of capabilities can be run with enterprise storage, including the EMC VMAX, VPLEX, VNX, Atmos and Isilon families, as well as commodity storage.

ViPR is a software-defined storage platform that is designed to provide the ability to manage both storage infrastructure (called the Control Plane) and the data stored within that infrastructure (called the Data Plane). It masks the complexity behind configuring and managing storage infrastructure, providing single point-and-click management for complex, heterogeneous storage functions.

“Expanding the scale of SANs supported by EMC ViPR furthers our joint efforts to make FC an essential element of the software-defined data center and protects the investment our 50,000 joint customers have made in their storage infrastructures,” said Jack Rondoni, VP, data center storage and solutions, Brocade. “Together, we are enabling new use cases built on top of the most reliable and highest-performing storage network.“

“We are delighted to continue our long-term relationship with Brocade and to work together to ensure seamless integration of the networking stack with the ViPR Software-Defined Storage platform,” said Christopher Ratcliffe, VP marketing, advanced software division, EMC. “Our joint focus on reducing data center costs and complexity in even the largest environments has resulted in the rapid adoption of EMC ViPR across our installed base.“

The ViPR platform is available from EMC and its global network of channel partners.