Brocade Unveils New Generation of File Virtualization Appliance
Two years after its NuView acquisition for $60 million
This is a Press Release edited by StorageNewsletter.com on March 18, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Brocade announced a
breakthrough product aimed at greatly simplifying file management in Microsoft
Windows environments. The Brocade File Management Engine (FME) is a
high-performance file virtualization appliance designed to automate the
intelligent movement and placement of file data. The product’s unique approach
to policy-based file migration helps customers reduce storage costs, eliminate
inefficient manual processes, and minimize IT downtime due to file data
migrations.
In today’s IT environments, more files are being created, copied,
accessed, and stored than ever before. Additionally, many of these files are
larger in size, driven by the increasing use of audio, video, image, and
streaming media. As a result, IT organizations increasingly face the tradeoffs
of more downtime and longer disruptions as they migrate and move files to add
capacity, improve performance, or optimize resources. In many cases, these
migrations are limited to costly weekend operations in order to avoid the risk
of downtime during production hours.
To help organizations overcome those challenges, Brocade FME embeds
policy-driven automation and centralized control of file movement — allowing
for non-disruptive migration and placement of data, without downtime. The
product provides several new and innovative features to the market, including:
Non-disruptive, transparent open file migration. Brocade FME enables
non-disruptive file movement that helps IT administrators migrate open or
locked files, even while users are accessing or writing to those files. This
combination of intelligent file movement with continued uptime and access
enables organizations to remain productive during file data migrations.
Policy-based file placement. Brocade FME automates the classification and
placement of file data within a tiered storage infrastructure — optimizing
storage costs and utilization, while simplifying management.
Integration with Microsoft Windows environments. Brocade FME leverages
native Microsoft Windows technologies, including Active Directory, Server
Message Block (SMB)/Common Internet File System (CIFS), and Distributed File
System (DFS). As a result of tight integration with these Windows
technologies, the product is optimized for performance in Windows file serving
environments, and seamlessly leverages established Windows management,
security, and network resources.
Fast, easy deployment and operation. The implementation of Brocade FME
requires no changes to client access, networks, or storage. Moreover, there
are no desktop, server, or storage agents to deploy or manage when
implementing Brocade FME — making it simpler and easier to deploy than other
solutions available today.
In addition, Brocade FME complements the strategic Brocade Data Center
Fabric (DCF) architecture, helping organizations make their file data
infrastructure more efficient, reliable, and adaptable to change.
"Business-critical file data is consuming more storage resources and IT
management cycles, so IT staffs need new solutions that help them streamline
and automate file management," said Richard Villars, Vice President, Storage
Systems Research at IDC. "Solutions like Brocade FME allow organizations to
centralize file management and automate manual, time-consuming processes,
leading to better information access, greater operational flexibility, and
improved IT management efficiency."
Brocade FME will be available from Brocade and the Company’s value-added
resellers in April.
Comments
Two years after its NuView acquisition for $60 million, Brocade announces a new solution dedicated to the file management nightmare. The offering is named File Management Engine (FME) to reflect that some intelligence is embedded in the appliance.
The approach is in-band running in 64 bits mode, based on a double quad-core, 16GB of memory and 10Gb Ethernet ports. For this first public release, the solution targets the Windows, CIFS and DFS worlds. A minimum of two boxes is sold in active mode and the future releases will offer up to eight engines all active in parallel. The solution addresses the folder limitation of DFS and the global namespace technology developed by Brocade proposes a more granular file-based namespace.
Some interesting features and key differentiators exist with this new product especially the True Transparent Open (and Locked) File Migration, which allows to move some files from one file server to a new one with no impact for the users. Consequently, migration and consolidation can be launched during the week without the need to wait for week-ends, especially as average file size grows and their number explodes. The two other features are the file placement within a file storage hierarchy like a file-oriented ILM function in order to distribute and move inactive files and the directory/project migration archival to reduce storage cost and address compliance needs.
The end-user has now the choice between a departmental product with
Brocade StorageX and a more high-end or data-center oriented product
with FME. The next few months will be very interested with
potential new announcements from F5/Acopia and
EMC/Rainfinity.
Jim Woods
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