EMC Also Chooses Brocade DCX Backbone Director

EMC
Corporation introduced the EMC Connectrix ED-DCX-B, the industry’s first 8
Gb/s (gigabit-per-second) Fibre Channel director. With 8 Gb/s line
rates – double that of existing directors – and four times the
aggregate bandwidth, the newest member of the Connectrix family enables
large-scale consolidation of virtual and physical servers and storage
pools, multi-protocol integration, and simplified management that can
dramatically reduce operational and capital costs.

Based
on OEM technology from Brocade, the Connectrix ED-DCX-B combines
unprecedented scalability and bandwidth with leading innovations in
power, energy efficiency and port density. The Brocade DCX is a new
class of network infrastructure and serves as the core platform for
Data Center Fabric (DCF) architectures. The DCF architecture
encompasses multiple storage protocols between applications and
storage, connects virtual server and storage pools, supports networking
over extended distances, and provides mainframe connectivity. The DCX
will be a platform for future networking capabilities, providing 8 Gb/s
Fibre Channel services at the core of the data center as well as
additional specialized fabric and data center application services.

The
Connectrix ED-DCX-B is designed to provide the highest levels of
scalability and performance with low energy consumption. With 6.5 Tb/s
(terabits-per-second) of total bandwidth, it can be configured to
support 2, 4, and 8 Gb/s Fibre Channel to connect hundreds of
applications, consolidate large scale VMware environments, and serve as
the core backbone of enterprise storage area networks (SANs). The
Connectrix ED-DCX-B also provides integrated multi-protocol support,
enabling further consolidation over extended distances and in
heterogeneous server environments.

The
Connectrix ED-DCX-B offers multiple blade options for server-to-storage
connectivity. The 8 Gb/s Fibre Channel blades are available in 16, 32,
and 48 ports for a maximum configuration of up to 384 ports in a single
domain. In addition, new inter-chassis links (ICLs) can be configured
to connect two Connectrix ED-DCX-B chassis together, while preserving
front-end ports. These connections utilize copper cables to link the
director’s core blades without combining domains.

“The
EMC Connectrix family of switches and directors provides customers with
extensive choices, proven interoperability, centralized management and
the industry’s best customer service,” said Barbara Robidoux, EMC Vice
President, Storage Product Marketing. “The new Connectrix ED-DCX-B
backbone is ideal for enterprise customers looking for the highest
levels of performance, availability and reliability. It’s a platform
that is designed to meet current needs and be easily expanded to meet
future SAN requirements.”

In addition to
higher levels of performance and scalability, the Connectrix ED-DCX-B
delivers several major new features to improve consolidation, fabric
management, and security. These features include Adaptive Networking
Services for optimized fabric behavior and ensuring ample bandwidth for
mission critical applications, native interoperability with Connectrix
M-series switches and directors, and Admin Domains to segregate and
limit access to shared fabric resources.

The EMC Connectrix family offers the industry’s most extensive
selection of networked storage connectivity products, ranging from
highly available enterprise-class directors to edge switches and
management tools. All Connectrix systems concurrently support multiple
hosts and operating systems, enabling multiple servers to connect to
multiple storage systems from EMC as well as other vendors. This
flexible family of platforms helps facilitate the consolidation of
information onto fewer storage systems for improved management,
protection and availability.

The Connectrix ED-DCX-B director is generally available from EMC.

EMC
Corporation

Brocade