Foundry acquisition to deliver innovative converged networks for Brocade

At the virtualisation layer, the firm has committed to VMware, Microsoft and Xen and claims that its approach will allow its partners to deploy without fear of backing the wrong technology in the rapidly evolving virtualisation market.

According to Paul Phillips, regional director for UK and Ireland at Brocade: “It’s not clear who the [virtualisation] technology winners are going to be so we are working within IEEE standards so you will be able to deploy the product down the line irrespective of the market landscape.”

Says Phillips: “We clearly want to work with the installed user base – customers don’t want to rip and replace, they just want to grow at the speed that they want to grow.”
Brocade which has around 70 percent of the global Market for SAN switches, primarily through huge OEM relationships with vendors like HP, Dell and HDS, will be aiming for similar agreements with Brocade One.
Foes
Taking great pains not to mention Cisco by name, Phillips believes that it is “a rip and replace technology while we are an open standard,” and although there is now some competition with HP, “They are still one of our strongest partners,” and a joint foe of Cisco which makes the likelihood of HP becoming a Brocade One partner likely.

Brocade currently does around 95 percent of its traditional SAN business through its OEM agreements but 65 percent of its IP business, inherited from Foundry, goes through the independent channel. Phillips believes that there will be a range of new partner certifications to support its Brocade One platform although these are still being finalised.

Although Brocade has announced a strong technology platform and real vision, Philips concedes that new products won’t be available until Q4 of this year. Brocade will open with a 24 port and 60 port converged switch this year with a larger chassis to follow in early 2011.