Dataflex

Compared to classic hierarchical Ethernet architectures, Ethernet fabrics provide higher levels of performance, utilisation, availability, and simplicity.

In a 2010 Gartner survey of over 1600 CIOs across the globe, participants were asked to identify their top business priorities today and looking 3 to 4 years out.

Their responses indicated that the focus today is on improving business processes and cost savings. Then, looking out a few years, improving productivity, driving innovation, gaining competitive advantage, and acquiring new customers.

These business priorities drive data centres to deploy new applications quickly and efficiently, provide fast and reliable “round-the-clock” access to information, meet or exceed stringent service levels with zero downtime—and all this while driving down costs by maximising investments.

In short, IT must move at the speed of business to capitalise on new opportunities and respond to increasing global competition.
High-density, multi-core servers, as well as network, server, and storage virtualisation are the technology enablers that address these business needs.

Data centres can leverage this set of technologies to pool IT resources and implement cloud architectures that reduce capital and operational expenditures, and at the same time create an infrastructure that rapidly scales and responds to business needs.

When data centres leverage these technologies, new networking challenges arise that were not present when applications were tied to physical servers.

Brocade® VCSTM technology is designed to meet these challenges by delivering the following:

/ Flatter. Ethernet fabrics are self-aggregating, enabling a flatter network.

/ Intelligent. Switches in the fabric know about each other and all connected devices.

/ Scalable. All paths are available for high performance and high reliability.

/ Efficient. Traffic automatically travels along the shortest path.

/ Simple. The fabric is managed as a single logical entity.