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Brocade Announces SDN Enhancements and New Switch
Brocade Communications Systems Inc. announced a new switch and software-defined networking (SDN) enhancements to its Brocade VCS fabric portfolio.
The company recently announced a free, one-year license for its new Vyatta Controller that helps enterprises explore SDN technologies. Brocade claimed the distinction of offering the first commercial product built directly with OpenDaylight source code, sans any added proprietary extensions or dependencies on other platforms.
Emphasizing the SDN capabilities of its fabric, the company unveiled its new Brocade VDX 6940 switch that it said would integrate with the Vyatta SDN controller when the upcoming Brocade Network OS 6.0 network operating system is released. Leveraging support of the OpenFlow 1.3 communications protocol, Brocade said the switch will also work with other, third-party controllers based on OpenDaylight.
Along with the switch and SDN enhancements, the company also announced new cloud orchestration improvements, support for DevOps tools and expanded VMware integration.
"SDN is enabling network infrastructure to deliver capabilities such as automated provisioning, programmatic management, service chaining, and integration with cloud orchestration, which is helping the network overcome long-standing limitations that made it an inhibitor to business agility, IT efficiency, and overall productivity," the company quoted IDC analyst Brad Casemore as saying. "By adding these SDN and orchestration capabilities to its Ethernet fabric portfolio, Brocade is helping its customers better align network architecture and operations with applications and developers."
The SDN enhancements and new switch will be available in early March, the company said, with the latter starting at $27,995.
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David Ramel is an editor and writer for Converge360.