Brocade

Brocade Inc. - an American company that designed, manufactured and sold comprehensive solutions, as well as software for network management. Data Storage Brocade had a significant impact on the industry as a SHD whole, having developed the first fibre channel switchboards and directors.

Business in Russia

Main article: Brocade Russia

Brocade Partner Program

Main article: Brocade Alliance Partner Network (APN)

History

2017: Extreme Networks Network Business Sale for $55 Million

In March 2017, Brocade Communications Systems announced the sale of its network equipment business to Extreme Networks. Thus, in the market there was a new large player, writes the business publication Benzinga with reference to the analyst of Wunderlich Securities Matthew Robison^[1]

Extreme Networks acquires assets from Brocade related to switches and routers for data centers, as well as analytical tools. These include SLX, VDX, and MLX series, Software Configurable Networking (SDN), and Network Function Virtualization (NFV).

The value of the transaction is $55 million. More than half of this amount ($35 million) will be paid by the buyer from its own funds by the time the transaction closes (scheduled for the beginning of the first quarter of fiscal year 2018), and the remaining part - within five years.

Extreme Networks expects the company to be able to earn more than $230 million in additional revenue from the purchase of Brocade's network business in the first year after the completion of the transaction.

The acquisition of the Brocade network business significantly strengthens our position in the growing market for high-performance data centers and strengthens our strategy to provide software network solutions to corporate customers, "says Ed Meyercord, President and CEO of Extreme Networks. - As Extreme is the only company in the world that produces only comprehensive wired and wireless enterprise IP solutions, Brocade customers, we believe, will benefit from our approach to providing high-quality secure software networking solutions, as well as the best support in the market.

It is worth recalling that in November 2016, the sale of Brocade to Broadcom was announced for $5.9 billion. The latter then immediately announced plans to sell the business developing Brocade to produce network equipment and software. Ruckus Wireless, a company related to this business, was sold to Arris for $800 million (the deal was announced in February 2017). Earlier in 2017, Extreme Networks announced the purchase of Avaya's network equipment division.

2016

Broadcom buys Brocade for $6 billion

On November 2, 2016, American semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom announced the purchase of Brocade Communications Systems for $6 billion. Thanks to this transaction, the buyer will be able to expand its business in the field of fiber-optic communication and data storage, reports Reuters.

Under the terms of the agreement, Broadcom will pay $5.5 billion or $12.75 for each Brocade share from its own funds, which is 46.7% more than the quotation level on October 28, 2016 - on the last day of exchange trading before information about the upcoming Brocade sale first appeared in the media. On October 2, the company's securities rose 8.3% to $12.16.

This strategic acquisition strengthens Broadcom's position as one of the leading providers of enterprise communications solutions for storing OEM data to customers, "said Broadcom CEO Hock Tan.

According to him, by joining Brocade, Broadcom will be able to "meet the growing needs" of customers, including Apple.

Broadcom intends to sell Brocade's business to produce IP network solutions (routers and switches for data centers, wireless network equipment, software), which includes the assets of Ruckus Wireless, purchased by Brocade in 2016 for $1.2 billion.

Broadcom will take over Brocade's debts - about $400 million by early November 2016. Thus, the takeover of Brocade will cost Broadcom $5.9 billion.

In a blog post in the Brocade community, CEO Lloyd Carney admitted that he did not want to sell Brocade, but Broadcom made a too attractive offer that could not be refused.

It is planned to close the deal in the second half of Broadcom's fiscal year, which began on October 31, 2016. This merger must first be approved by regulators.

Buying Ruckus Wireless

In early April 2016, Brocade announced the purchase of wireless LAN equipment manufacturer Ruckus Wireless for $1.5 billion.

As a result of the sale of Ruckus, the shareholders of this company will receive $6.45 in cash and 0.75 ordinary Brocade shares for each security owned by them. The value of the transaction may fluctuate until its closure, scheduled for the third quarter of 2016. More details here.

2015: Brocade Chapter: Cisco Cannot Adapt to Open Source

In early August 2015, CRN published excerpts from an interview with Brocade CEO Lloyd Carney, who, among other statements, expressed his opinion on the ability of Cisco and other network equipment manufacturers to successfully work in the open solutions market, in which the top manager sees the future of the data center market

According to Carney, the incomes of traditional vendors such as Cisco are tied to closed architectures, so it is extremely difficult for them to adapt to work on Open Source projects, which are more focused on software management.

2014

1% revenue reduction to $2.2 billion

According to the results of fiscal year 2014, which came to the end of November 1, the revenue of Brocade Communication Systems amounted to $2.2 billion, which is 1% less than a year earlier. The company explained the drop in sales by abandoning some product lines, such as HBA adapters, and optimizing the range.^[2]

Net income for the reporting 12-month period reached $238 million, or 55 cents per share, against last year's $208.6 million, or 46 cents per company's securities. Annual operating expenses remained almost unchanged - $1.1 billion, where R&D costs accounted for $345.5 million, and investments in sales organization and marketing amounted to $554.6 million.

It also follows from the Brocade report that the sale of products provided the company with revenue of $1.85 billion, which is slightly lower compared to fiscal year 2013. The company's service division ended the year with revenue of $359 million, which is $7 million more than a year ago.

Brocade's annual turnover in Storage Area Network reached $1.3 billion, up 1% year-on-year. Excluding the company's refusal to release HBAs, revenue in this segment rose by 2%.

Sales of IP solutions in fiscal 2014 decreased by 5% compared to last year, amounting to $525 million. If you do not take into account the costs associated with the reorganization of the Brocade ADX application load balancer line and the cessation of sales of wireless network adapters, then the company's revenue in the IP Networking sector did not fall, but increased by 1%.

The manufacturer notes that the financial strengthening in the IP products market was facilitated by government contracts for the supply of switches and routers in the United States, as well as growing sales of routers to telecom operators.

During fiscal year 2014, Brocade repurchased 38 million shares in the amount of $335 million and paid $30 million in dividends. Operating cash flow for the year increased by one fifth, reaching $542 million.

Business niche: in the wake of growing data

In 2014, Brocade's strategy addresses customer needs for data center networking (data center). The company offers two critical components of modern data centers - next-generation factories (SAN and LAN), as well as software-configurable networks (SDN ).

Even in the two most crisis years (2008-2009), the volume of data in information systems did not decrease, but only grew. What to say when the economy went uphill again. The development of heavy content (primarily video) leads to a surge in the volume of data transmitted over the networks of telecom operators. It is easy to guess that the large-scale development of "e-government" also requires increasing costs for storage systems. The same trend is observed in the largest sectors: in banking, oil and gas, transport.

More data requires more and more disk space. The number of servers and staging devices combined in a Storage Area Network (SAN) is growing SAN. Companies need more "pipes" (ports) to connect infrastructure nodes. The "pipe diameter" on which the data is pumped is measured by more and more digits: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 gigabits.

The need for new data solutions is due not only to the general growth of traffic, but also to technological changes in customer information systems. Here simplicity in one turns into sometimes difficulties in something else. Take virtualization, for example. When each individual task was performed on a separate server, its average load was most often small, and a narrow "pipe" was enough to transfer data. Everything changed when, thanks to virtualization, each server was booted to the maximum. Now the "pipe" to it should be wider. In such cases, the "diameter" of 4 gigabits is often no longer enough. Many companies today have switched to 8 gigabit channels. In 2011, 16-gigabit solutions will also appear on the market, which in a year or two will become common in virtual infrastructures.

At the origins of revolutionary technologies, Brocade became a specialized provider of storage solutions. The company's management managed to correctly predict the technological preferences of customers and make a series of successful acquisitions. Today, Brocade solutions are built into systems delivered by the world's leading IT corporations - all major storage server vendors. EMC, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi Data Systems and IBM are the largest consumers of its products. The market is closely following Brocade's developments and plans. And everything began as always - with an office of 37 square meters. meters with an impromptu table for meetings from a large cardboard box.

2013

Turnover $2.2 billion (-1%)

Brocade's turnover in the world for the 2013 fiscal year ended October 26, 2013 amounted to $2,223 million, a decrease of 1% from the previous year.

The turnover in the direction of SAN amounted to $1540 million, a decrease of 2% from the previous year.

IP turnover amounted to $682 million, an increase of 3% from the previous year.

For fiscal year 2013, GAAP EPS earnings per share increased by 10% from last year and Non-GAAP EPS increased by 21% from last year.

Lloyd Carney - new CEO

On January 14, 2013, Brocade announced the appointment of Lloyd Carney as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). This event was planned in advance - on August 16, 2012, plans were announced to change CEO in the company and a committee was formed to find a new CEO. Brocade thanks previous CEO Michael A. Klayko for more than 7 years of successful management of the company and wishes him all the best. He conducted two major successful acquisitions of McData and Foundry Networks and positioned Brocade as a world-class technology leader and manufacturer of network solutions. The company is in excellent financial condition, with a very strong product line and development plans.

Structure Optimization

In 2013, Brocade optimized its structure. After changing the company's leadership in the United States, Marcus Jewell was appointed new vice president for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

On January 17, 2014, Brocade announced the sale of its network adapter business to QLogic. Optimizing the structure, the company continued to invest in the development of new products and in the development of certain geographical regions. As a result, the company ended the year with good financial results and strong stock appreciation.

2012: Turnover + 4 %

The results of the fiscal year 2012, which ended on October 27, 2012, are good. Turnover for the 2012 financial year amounted to a record $2.238 billion in the history of the company, with an increase of 4% from 2011. The company fully repaid a loan made to buy Foundry Networks in 2008 and continued to expand, buying Vyatta, a pioneer and leader in programmable networks (Software Networking).

The key activities of Brocade are networks, Data Storage SAN classic Ethernet solutions and converged solutions of Ethernet fabrics. Brocade offers solutions for three key markets: data centers (), DPC enterprise networks, service provider networks. According to the results of fiscal year 2012, Brocade sales, including products and services, amounted to 71% for SANs and 29% for IP networks. In fiscal year 2012, Brocade SAN sales worldwide increased by 7% compared to 2011, reaching $1.578 billion.

2011: CloudPlex Architecture

In May 2011, Brocade introduced an open, non-vendor-specific CloudPlex architecture that combines computing, storage, and IP hardware into a single cloud environment. This open, scalable environment allows customers to build next-generation distributed virtualized data centers in a simple, evolutionary way, keeping control of all aspects of this transition.

Within the framework of the concept, Brocade offers the construction of the so-called Virtual Computer Blocks (VCB), combining third-party equipment - at the server, virtualization, network and storage levels. It is assumed that the cloud will be built by combining these blocks on the basis of CloudPlex by building links between them.

Perhaps the main thing that cloud providers will get from using an open architecture is a high-tech environment for scaling their virtual applications. According to Brocade representatives, the CloudPlex architecture will easily manage not hundreds of virtual machines installed on a certain type of server, but tens of thousands. Moreover, they can be dynamically redistributed throughout the cloud, regardless of the presence or absence of a provider of a certain type of equipment manufactured by a particular vendor. If the concept works without failures, as its creators conceived, this will certainly affect the entire data center market.

According to Brocade Technical Director Dave Stevens, a new technology with the working name Starlifter is expected to be announced in the next year and a half, which will not only combine computing power, virtualization solutions and storage of geographically distributed data centers into a single global computing network (Wide Area Network, WAN), but will also include a number of other technologies that will allow user applications to both freely migrate from one infrastructure segment of a single "cloud" to another, and at the same time ensure that the security indicators and other parameters specified in the SLA are maintained for a specific service customer.

The scale of the initiative CloudPlex impressive. But many are trying to grab their piece of pie in the new market. Following Brocade in early May, HP also announced a converged FlexNetwork architecture, and announced an update to the HP line of solutions to, in particular, facilitate its deployment. According to the figurative expression of HP Executive Vice President David Donatelli, the main task of the new integrated FlexNetwork architecture is to eliminate the "network silo," which will speed up the delivery of services to end users: "Monovendor with a proprietary approach, such as Cisco, closes consumers on its solutions, and then raises the cost and unnecessarily complicates them. In particular, in order to scale the network to the next level in terms of geographical coverage of users, each time a new architecture is required. "

Cisco itself promotes the vBlock solution developed with EMC and VMware. It is time for observers to take places at the finish line in anticipation of the winner of this race.

As always, the most objective assessment of suppliers' positions is the opinions of investors who vote with their money. Over the past year, Brocade shares have risen in price by more than a third. The shares of the main competitor - Cisco - showed a similar dynamics, but with a minus sign.

Brocade has stated quite a lot, and this cannot but give rise to doubts that in practice everything will be as smooth as the manufacturers intended.

At the same time, no one will argue that the company's initiative is very important. Finally, the industry managed to take the first, most important step to the "clouds" with multivendor infrastructure precisely in the interests of consumers. For a long time, for various reasons, vendors bypassed this issue. The fact that for customers is an opportunity to smoothly "evolve" when building up their infrastructure, for the largest vendors, perhaps little is predictable in terms of final results.

In the future, the implementation of CloudPlex approach should increase the competitiveness and financial performance of data centers that provide cloud services to their end users. It will allow them to carry out modernization, and not rest on the equipment of a particular vendor, but to shift the emphasis to the indicators of value for money, while maximally preserving and using the equipment that they already operate. It seems that the largest vendors-manufacturers of solutions, in the market of which competition will sharply increase, will pay for the improvement in the financial performance of data centers, and the dynamics of demand growth in the short term may theoretically even slow down slightly.

If Brocade has enough resources to work out CloudPlex and implement its approach with certification for compatibility with the new architecture of "virtual compute blocks" (VCBs), which are modules for building a cloud architecture on a multivendor basis, then CloudPlex obviously expects a great future. Brocade itself will be able to directly influence the formation of a new arrangement of forces in the industry.

Under another scenario predicted by many analysts, Brocade could be sold to one of the largest vendors. In comparison with mega corporations, the total size of its business is still small - according to the results of 2010, only $2 billion. It is very likely that negotiations on the absorption of an ambitious player are already underway.

Theoretically, there is a third way, implying the maximum possible attraction of the resources of the community of "cloud" developers and manufacturers, the sympathy and authority among which Brocade today deserves rightfully. It will allow CloudPlex-solutions

2010: Converged Products

Turnover for the 2010 financial year amounted to $2.094 billion, which is 7% more than the turnover of 2009. Net income amounted to $119 million, which is $200 million more than in 2009.

In the fourth quarter, 57% of the turnover was given by SAN products, 26% - Ethernet products. 61% of sales went through Brocade OEM partners, 39% - through the channel or directly.

As of October 30, 2010, the company employed 4,651 employees.

It is no exaggeration to say that one of the key competitive advantages of Brocade throughout its history has remained a huge array of developments in the field of fiber channel technologies. But it seems that gradually Fibre Channel will be replaced by other technologies. Although, according to IDC, the global market for FC products in 2010 grew by 7.6% to $3.01 billion, already in 2011 the growth rate of sales of this equipment will decrease to 1%, which means a decrease in the market taking into account inflation. Nikolai Umnov, head of Brocade in Russia, suggests that the future is for converged solutions, but states that for at least a few more years Fibre Channel will remain the main technology of storage networks. In our country this year, a slowdown in demand for FC products is not expected, and sales here will be exactly significantly higher than in the whole world. And yet, what will replace the proven solutions? The possible answer is a converged network adapter.

In simple terms, convergence allows you to insert not two cards into each server (one - network, the other - Fibre Channel), but only one. Accordingly, only one cable can be fed to each server instead of two cables. It sounds everyday, but in practice this allows you to halve the number of switches that companies use today. It is assumed that such a solution should be simpler and cheaper. But so far this is not so.

"Converged solutions have not yet matured before replacing Fibre Channel and Ethernet infrastructure separately," says Nikolai Umnov. - But this is the strategic direction of Brocade, and we have significant advantages here. Since Brocade has deep expertise in both IP and Fibre Channel, we have developed new chips, a new operating system, new management tools that allow us to use our experience both there and there to build a single convergent environment. If convergence is replaced, Fibre Channel will remain - just change the lower layer protocol and get Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). "

Classic Fibre Channel added a lot of new and good to classic Ethernet, and converged solutions appeared. Brocade introduced the concept of an Ethernet factory (a term that is more correctly translated into Russian as "woven Ethernet"). It seems to be Ethernet, but operating on the principle of Fibre Channel fabric, when traffic can go several ways at once, unlike the Ethernet solution, where it can go only one way. In this system, all switches are "aware" of each other. You can add and remove switches to this fabric without manual configuration. Logically, the entire system is perceived as one switch, and the user controls the system as one switch. This class of solutions is represented in Brocade by the VDX product line and the VCS (Virtual Cluster Switching) architecture, which form a separate new direction.

A single cloud must be configured automatically when the operator deletes or adds products. One of the main tasks is the work of administrators with virtual machines without significant manual work on their connection and configuration. Customers should not lose investments in previous generations of equipment. The entire system must be optimized for applications that require increasing network bandwidth, processing power, and storage space. After all, as these applications move to the cloud, they begin to work everywhere, which leads to new requirements for more efficient, reliable and scalable networks, "Brocade describes the conditions of the task that the company is currently working on

.

"How much this will be demanded by the market, and how quickly, we do not yet know," says Nikolai Umnov. - We see a lot of interest in the Ethernet factory, where we brought developments from the world of Fibre Channel, greatly improving the usual Ethernet. Interest in FCoE is still noticeably less - classic Fibre Channel rules here. We have just released a new generation of 16 GB FC and expect this technology to be the most popular in storage networks for the next three years. Do not forget about Ethernet 1/10/100 Gbit. We leave the customer a choice and the ability to evolve smoothly, while maintaining investment in infrastructure. "

It is possible that a limitation in the perception of converged solutions is the established separation of teams of specialists within IT departments of customers. This is a political problem.

Typically, your organization has a classic IP infrastructure and a classic FC infrastructure. In practice, different teams are responsible for different directions. Fibre Channel is handled by storage people. Networks are responsible for the IP network. They do not want to let each other configure their own equipment. These are people with different mentalities. In many organizations, this will remain so for many years. At the same time, as always, there are those companies that are already ready for change. Such organizations understand the potential of convergence and are ready to overcome organizational barriers.

Many suppliers are trying to solve the above problem, but it was Brocade that again managed to take the first important step - to develop a holistic concept of an open cloud architecture, which is already promoted by many IT companies in the world. from different vendors over time to take dominant positions in the market, squeezing out today's leaders.

2008: Foundation Networks takeover

Next in 2008, Strategic Business Systems was acquired, providing services in the storage market (today Brocade is engaged in the audit of storage in data centers and their design). But the main deal of the year was a $2.6 billion takeover of Foundry Networks, a manufacturer of routers and Ethernet switches. This transaction was of particular importance for consumers in Russia, since before its takeover, Foundry Networks did not have representation in the countries of the former Soviet Union. There is a legend that the founder of the company grew up on an American military base in Japan, and this affected his political preferences. After the integration of Foundry Networks into Brocade, the situation changed, and Russia became one of the countries where any company equipment is available.

After the acquisition of the Foundry Networks BigIron, FastIron, IronPoint, IronShield, IronView, IronWare, NetIron, SecureIron, ServerIron, and TurboIron line, they were added to the Brocade product portfolio.

The new direction related to data transfer technologies occupies a significant share in Brocade's revenue: in the 4th quarter of 2010, Ethernet products accounted for 26% of its revenue. Note that the promotion of 100 gigabit Ethernet solutions today is among Brocade's top priorities.

Having gained control over systems of various classes, the company began their integration into converged optimized solutions. The process begun then, with great scale, is still ongoing.

2007: Purchase of McData

Acquisition of Silverback Systems, Inc. Enable faster network applications.

Fibre Channel technology hardware includes various classes of balancers, hubs, switches, and routers that transmit billions of data packets per second. During the dot-coma boom in the late 1990s, all this equipment was in widespread demand.

Following the collapse of the exchange bubble of the "Internet economy" for network equipment suppliers, hard times have come. At such a time, a lot depends on the accuracy of decisions.

Brocade's bet on 4 gigabit FC products turned out to be a win. The company remained the market leader, including companies such as McData and Cisco.

Competition with McData was especially intense. This supplier had a strong product line in the segment of FC switches and directors, but in the financial plane the business was not organized optimally. In 2007, Brocade acquired McData, paying its shareholders $713 million in its own shares.

The successful takeover allowed Brocade to launch a new generation of 8 gigabit products, which led to a new breakthrough in the development of its business. The bet on 8 gigabit technologies turned out to be more advantageous, especially against the background of a mistake made by Cisco. The latter announced the transition to convergent solutions too early (this is below) and missed time.

SAN-related business still remains Brocade's root and generates more than half of its revenue. According to Dell's Oro Group, the company's share in global sales of FC switches and directors as of the end of Q3 2010 was 66.8%.

1994: Foundation of the company

In 1994, the founders of Brocade - a racing driver and venture capital entrepreneur, Seth Neiman Paul Bonderson of Sun Microsystems and an emigrant from almost India Kumar Malavalli 20 years worked for HP Canadian Network Operations - realized that the problems of unification storage systems and the rapidly growing size of such systems are "bottlenecks" that prevent high IT performance. They concluded that the best solution to these problems could be fiber channel technology (FC), Fibre Channel a family of protocols for high-speed data transmission.

Interestingly, before the creation of Brocade, Kumar Malavalli, known today as the "father of Fibre Channel," was chairman of the T11 Technical Committee at the International Committee on IT Standards. It was Malavally who developed the first four specifications for this technology. supercomputers The fiber channel technology originally used in the field was widely used in the creation of storage networks. Over time, Fibre Channel has essentially become the standard way to connect SHD to enterprise-level storage (storage).

As of June 2011, Brocade owns more Fibre Channel standards than any other company. Its staff still dominate the working groups of the target committees and associations.

• In April 1997, Brocade began shipping its first SilkWorm switches.
• 2003 – Rhapsody Networks
• 2005 – Therion Software Corporation
• 2006 – NuView, Inc. Enterprise Data Management Software Development

Products

Brocade Specialty Integrated Circuits (ASICs) Evolution

First generation - 1997

• ASIC: Stitch
  • Ports on ASIC: 2

• Switches: SilkWorm 1000

Second generation - 1999

• ASIC: LOOM
  • Speed: 1 Gbit/s
  • Ports on ASIC: 4

• Directors: SilkWorm 6400
• Switches: SilkWorm 2400, 2800, etc.

Third generation - 2001

• ASIC: BLOOM и BLOOM II
  • Speed: 2 Gbit/s
  • Ports on ASIC: 8
  • Developed ISL trunking (four-port groups called quads) and packet filtering

• Directors: SilkWorm 12000, SilkWorm 24000
• Switches: SilkWorm 3200, 3800, 3850, etc.

Fourth generation - 2004

• ASIC: Condor
  • Speed: 4 Gbit/s
  • Ports on ASIC: 32
  • Developed advanced trunking (eight-port groups)
  • Directors: SilkWorm 48000
  • Switches: SilkWorm 4100, 4900, etc.
  • Router: 7500, FR4-18i (Director blade)

• ASIC: GoldenEye (simplified Condor)
  • Speed: 4 Gbit/s
  • Ports on ASIC: 24
  • Switches: SilkWorm 200E

Fifth Generation - 2008

• ASIC: Condor 2
  • Speed: 8 Gbit/s
  • Ports on ASIC: 40
  • Directors: DCX Backbone
  • Switch: 5100 (1 ASIC, 40 ports)

• ASIC: GoldenEye 2
  • Speed: 8 Gbit/s
  • Ports on ASIC: 24
  • Switches: 300 (1 ASIC, 24 ports), 5300 (9 ASICS, 80 ports)

2014: SAN, LAN и SDN

In 2014, the development of new Brocade products focuses on a data center network - next-generation factories (SAN and LAN) and software-configurable networks (SDN).

Brocade SAN

Brocade Storage Area Network (SAN) switches are the foundation for server and storage consolidation, enabling organizations to access and share data efficiently.

Fibre Channel remains the primary technology for building SANs. In total SAN Brocade sales, 5th generation FC solutions have already accounted for about 71% (as of 25.01.2014).

In 2013, the release of new 5th generation Fibre Channel products (16 Gb/s) continued: the 96-port Brocade 6520 switch appeared, as well as built-in switches for the chassis of blade servers of our OEM partners.

In the fall of 2013, a new version of FabricOS 7.2 was released, in which MetaSAN scalability parameters were noticeably increased, and Brocade Fabric Vision technology debuted. The T11 committee continues to develop the 6th generation Fibre Channel standard (32 Gb/s, a preliminary version of FC-PI-6 is available on the T11 website). In 2014, a preliminary version of the 128 Gb/s FC standard is expected (FC-PI-6P - quad 32GFC).

Brocade Name	Name of the McData before merging	Max. port speed (Gb/s)	Max. number of ports	IBM reseller type-model IBM TotalStorage SAN Switch B16, B32, B5K, B64, H08, H16, M12, M14, M48, and R18 (Router) Release Notes [3]	HP reseller designation [3]	[3][4]
2800	-	1	16	2109-S16	16	DS-16B
3200	-	2	8	3534-F08	2/08EL	DS-8B2
3800	-	2	16	2109-F16	2/16EL	DS-16B2
3250	-	2	8	2005-H08	N/A	N/A
3850	-	2	16	2005-H16	N/A	DS-16B3
3900	-	2	32	2109-F32	2/32	DS-32B2
12000	-	2	2 x 64	2109-M12	2/64	ED-12000-B
24000	-	4	128	2109-M14	2/128	ED-24000B
48000	-	4	384	2109-M48	N/A	ED-48000B
200E	-	4	16	2005-B16	N/A	N/A
4100	-	4	32	2005-B32	4/32	DS-4100B
4900	-	4	64	2005-B64	N/A	DS-4900B
5000	-	4	32	2005-B5K	N/A	DS-5000B
7500	-	4	16	2005-R18	N/A	N/A
DCX	-	8	768	2499-384	N/A	ED-DCX-B
300	-	8	24	2498-24E	N/A	DS-300B
5100	-	8	40	2498-40E	N/A	DS-5100B
5300	-	8	80	2498-B80	N/A	DS-5300B
Mi10K	Intrepid 10000	10	256	2027-256	N/A	ED-10000M
M6140	Intrepid 6140	10	140	2027-140	2/140	ED-140M
?	ED-6064	10	64	2032-064	2/64	ED-64M
?	Sphereon 4300	2	12	2026-E12	N/A	N/A
M4700	Sphereon 4700	4	32	2026-432	N/A	N/A
?	Sphereon 4500	2	24	2026-224	N/A	DS-24M2
M4400	Sphereon 4400	4	16	2026-416	N/A	N/A
?	Sphereon 3232	2	32	2027-232	N/A	DS-32M2
?	ES-3016	1	16	2031-016	N/A	DS-16M
?	ES-3032	1	32	2031-032	N/A	DS-32M
?	ES-3216	2	16	2031-216	N/A	DS-16M2

LAN

In 2010, Brocade announced a fundamentally new strategy for building Brocade One networks, which allows you to simplify the design of local area networks and data center networks as much as possible and at the same time increase the throughput, fault tolerance and scalability of such solutions.

Key elements of the new architecture are Brocade Virtual Access Layer (VAL) and Virtual Cluster Switching (VCS) technologies. The VAL virtual access layer determines how virtual machines access the network. The Virtual Switching Cluster (VCS) allows you to circumvent all the limitations of traditional Ethernet associated with the use of the STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) on the local network, and also adds a number of unique advantages:

* Single management of all devices * Increased fault tolerance * Guaranteed uniform load on all channels * Application traffic is independent of network configuration changes * Minimal and predictable traffic latency * Simultaneous transmission of IP and FC (Fiber Channel) protocols on the same channel

The first device in the new architecture is a 10 gigabit Brocade VDX 6700 switch with 24 or 60 ports, which already in the first release supports automatic VCS clustering and guaranteed FC transfer over Ethernet FCoE.

In 2013, Brocade continued the development of LAN products designed for three main areas of market development, namely solutions for:

• enterprise networks,
• service providers,
• Data Center.

A new high-speed ICX 7750 switch has been released, designed to aggregate a large number of optical/copper 10/40Gb Ethernet ports, which also has the ability to cascade. This device received the highest performance compared to the already existing ICX switches in the Brocade product portfolio and took the flagship place in this series.

The line of products for service providers has been replenished with new software routers vRouters 5400, 5600. The first software traffic controller of layer 4-7 applications of the OSI model came out, the range of use of which is very large and is not limited only to the operator market. For MLXe routers, new line cards with 4x40GB ports have been released.

The VCS Ethernet fabric solution was supplemented by three new VDX 6740 switches with improved hardware features, which made it possible to improve the functionality of the VCS data center solution in general.

Brocade IP Data Network Equipment

Brocade IP data network equipment is designed for customers who require high performance, scalability, compatibility and compliance, and high reliability of data networks. Brocade offers equipment for three key market segments: service providers, data centers, and enterprise or campus networks.

Equipment for enterprise networks and data centers includes devices designed for the core of the network and the aggregation level. These are the BigIron, TurboIrion and FastIron Super X lines. And access layer switches FastIron different series, with support for routing, PoE, stacking and various interfaces including 10 Gb Ethernet ports.

Brocade backbone routers for service provider networks include the lines of NetIron MLX and XMR with support for IPv4 and IPv6 routing, Metro Ethernet, MPLS, and MPLS VPN technologies. The NetIron CES 2000 series is designed to be used as a CPE at the edge of the network and supports functions necessary for the backbone network, including Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB)

The Brocade ServerIron series is designed to increase the availability, security, and scalability of mission-critical business applications in data centers of enterprises and service providers. ServerIron devices provide server load balancing, application-level switching, SSL acceleration, and fault tolerance for distributed data centers.

The Brocade IronView Network Manager (INM) management system supports all Brocade network devices and provides centralized hardware management capabilities including switches, routers, wireless products, and traffic management devices.

Load balancing, application optimization and delivery

Series of ServerIron ADX switchboards

ServerIron ADX enables you to:

• Load balancing (SLB) at all levels, including the application layer (L7), that is, allocating client requests to servers based on application specifics, server load, traffic type, and other criteria. Global load balancing (GSLB) is also possible, that is, the distribution of traffic between geographically spaced sites (DPOs), including taking into account their state and channel load.
• relieving server load associated with TCP and SSL protocols. It is also possible to perform traffic compression for mobile applications
• application-level (L7) traffic processing, for example - rewriting HTTP headers, replacing URL links, etc.

The functionality of the switch supports the necessary security functions, for example, the fight against DoS/ DDoS attacks implemented in hardware, i.e. without reducing performance.

It also supports routing protocols (RIPv2, OSPF, BGP), and other functionality necessary to support user traffic in data center networks.

Where a failover solution is needed, it is possible to organize access to servers by creating clusters from switches that will be visible as a single device for the user. Options for failover configurations are Active/Stanby and Active/Active.

Maximum parameter values for the ADX ServerIron (given for the oldest ADX 10000 model):

• 70 GB L7 bandwidth
• 13 GB bandwidth for SSL traffic
• 128 million per second simultaneous connections
• 14 million DNS queries per second
• up to 16 10 GB ports per chassis
• up to 48 1 GB ports per chassis (copper and/or optics)

Equipment for operators and service providers

After the acquisition of Foundry Networks, Brocade continued to develop in the field of SP and offers switches and routers to market for the construction of transport operator networks using MPLS or MetroEthernet technologies.

The flagship Brocade router of the NetIron MLX/MLXe series is today the most productive in the market among multifunctional devices for enterprise and operator networks. Thanks to the distributed, completely not blocked architecture of NetIron MLX has an opportunity to aggregate to 32 ports 100 GB, up to 256 ports of 10 GB or up to 1536 ports of 1 GB with a general performance more than 15 of Tb / with, at the same time the router is capable to provide transfer to 7.6 billion packages a second. The functionality software allows you to combine up to 64 10 GB of ports into one 640 GB virtual channel or up to 16 100 GB ports with a total bandwidth of 1.6 TB.

Brocade Direct Routing (BDR) technology allows hardware routing of user traffic on line cards without the involvement of the control module. The NetIron MLX series routers have the following specifications to enable efficient use of this equipment in networks of any scale:

* up to 16 thousand VPLS tunnels up to 1 million MAC addresses * up to 32 thousand VLL (EoMPLS) tunnels * 4094 VLANs with support for up to 1 million MAC addresses * hardware support for up to 1 million IPv4 routes * hardware support for up to 240 thousand IPv6 routes * up to 10 million BGP routes * up to 2000 BGP/MPLS VPN and 1 million VPN routes

Notes