Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) today unveiled new blades to boost the speed and density of its high-end Ethernet and storage networking switches.
The Brocade DCX Backbone gets a new 64-port 8Gbps Fibre Channel blade, for a 33 percent increase in wire-speed density to 512 ports per chassis on the DCX and half that on the DCX-4S.
“512 8-gig ports give you a lot of capacity,” said Bill Dunmire, Brocade’s product marketing director.
The DCX offers advanced features such as port-level bottleneck detection, data center bridging, fabric-based encryption, FCIP extension, adaptive networking and virtual fabrics.
Brocade’s flagship Ethernet switches, the NetIron MLX Series, get new 8×10G-M blades for carrier Ethernet networks and 8×10G-D blades for data centers. The blades double the wire-speed 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) density of the NetIron MLX to 256 ports on a single chassis.
The NetIron MLX 8×10G-M Series blades start at $39,995, while the 8×10G-D blades start at $27,995. The FC8-64 blade for SAN customers will be available through Brocade OEM and channel partners, so the company did not provide pricing.
The moves, including Brocade’s first storage switch product announcement since September, come as rival Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) appears to have gained ground on Brocade in the director-class storage switch market last quarter, claims denied by Brocade.
Brocade might have more news at its Technology Day next week in New York City. The company said it will be demonstrating “unparalleled architectural advancements, which encompass all parts of the network, including data centers, enterprises and services providers,” at the event.
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