Brocade and Cisco have rolled out additions to their data center connectivity platforms.Brocade brought out a smaller version of its DCX Backbone director, while Cisco launched a larger Nexus switch.
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Quantum refreshes de-dupe appliance |
The Brocade DCX-4S Backbone is a 192-port version of the 384-port 8 Gbps DCX Backbone that Brocade launched a year ago. The DCX-4S has four blade slots vs. the original DCX device's eight slots. The 4S version can be used as a smaller core backbone, implemented as an edge switch to complement the bigger DCX in large enterprises, or used as a router to move data between fabrics.
Like the original DCX, the 4S can connect to Brocade's other directors and switches, and will support Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) through the addition of a blade for converged networks.
Brocade also upgraded the operating system used for managing its directors and switches. The Brocade Fabric OS 6.2 has a Virtual Fabrics feature that lets customers partition a physical switch into virtual fabrics that can be managed independently – similar to the VSAN capability of Cisco's MDS Fibre Channel director.
Until now, Brocade devices could be partitioned into separate admin domains for easier management, but individual ports couldn't be managed independently, according to senior product marketing manager Bill Dunmire. "Now we've taken it all the way through to actual traffic flow and control," he says. "A virtual fabric acts and looks like a separate switch and you manage it like a separate switch."
The DCX-4S Backbone is available today from Brocade, as well as from OEM partners Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems.
Cisco beefs up FCoE device
The new Cisco Nexus 7018 is an 18-slot chassis that supports 512 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports or 768 1 gig Ethernet ports. The Nexus 7010, launched last year, holds up to 256 10 Gig or 384 1 gig Ethernet ports. The Nexus isn't an FC device, but is the central piece of Cisco's FCoE strategy. In addition, Cisco today rolled out the Nexus 5010 28-port switch that supports FC and FCoE, as well as 10 Gig and Data Center Ethernet (DCE).
"Today, the FCoE migration is primarily on the server side, combining separate HBAs [host bus adapters] and NICS into a converged network adapter," says Rajeev Bhardwaj, director of product management for the Cisco MDS FC platform. "You have a single I/O interface coming out that supports Fibre Channel and Ethernet. That goes to the Nexus switch where traffic gets split up so SAN traffic goes into a Fibre Channel infrastructure and LAN traffic goes into an Ethernet infrastructure."
Brocade, Cisco battle for data center supremacy
Brocade and Cisco have been going toe-to-toe with their next-generation data center platforms since the DCX and Nexus both launched last January. Brocade claims approximately 250 customers for the DCX, the same amount Cisco says is using its Nexus 7010. But the vendors have different visions about the timing of FCoE. Cisco says FCoE is already useful for consolidating devices and has customers using it, while Brocade maintains FCoE is at least a year or so away from having data center value. Brocade sees 8 Gbit FC as the next logical upgrade before organizations re-work their data centers for FCoE, although it showed how much it values Ethernet by acquiring Foundry Networks for $US2.6 billion last year.
"I don't know if you can compare them side by side, but they're going down the same path to help automate the data center infrastructure and network storage infrastructure," says Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Bob Laliberte of the DCX and Nexus. "Cisco's probably a little ahead on the FCoE story, but that's an immature market now and there's still time for Brocade to catch up."
Rob Stevenson, managing director of storage research at market research firm TheInfoPro, says his company's research shows 8 gig and FCoE running neck and neck in planning among Fortune 1000 customers, but neither is top of mind yet.
"The curve for adoption for 8 gig and FCoE are almost one in the same now," he says. "Two percent say they're using it now, 19% say they're planning to adopt over the next 18 months and the rest have no plans."
IBM qualifies Brocade HBAs
Brocade also announced that IBM Corp. has certified its 8 Gbit HBAs for the IBM System x server family.
Harry Petty, Brocade's HBA product marketing director, says EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, LSI's Engenio and Xiotech have also qualified the HBAs that Brocade launched last year.
Quantum refreshes de-dupe appliance.
Quantum today expanded capacity of the DXi7500 data deduplication disk backup box and upgraded the software to make for more granular replication and better application integration.
Quantum added support for 1 TB SATA drives -- the previous high was 750 GB -- to bring the maximum capacity for the DXi7500 to 220 TB. The DXi 7500 hardware is based on a system from OEM partner LSI. Quantum is now supporting double-parity RAID 6 technology to better protect the larger drives.
On the software side, Quantum added features to further improve its replication, as well as support for Symantec OpenStorage API (OST) and Oracle RMAN, application-specific integration with tape drives, expanded command-line scripting and enhanced network and port management capabilities.
"We're adding things that make it easier to dedupe across multiple sites and multiple tiers and better integrate with backup applications," said Steve Whitner, Quantum's product marketing manager for its disk product platform.
Quantum began shipping its enterprise data deduplication system last June. While the DXi7500 previously replicated data for entire partitions, it now can replicate data on cartridges (VTL) or at the file (NAS interface) level and restore data from cartridges or in a file directory while continuing to replicate.
OST support means when DXi7500 customers use Symantec NetBackup Media Server, NetBackup can synchronize two instances of the data independently so they can be managed and restored separately on different systems. Data Domain and FalconStor previously announced support for OST with their data deduplication products. Quantum also claims the DXi7500 can increase its deduplication ratio up to four times when used with Oracle RMAN by separating metadata from data.
Quantum wants tape, disk to co-exist
Unlike its major deduplication rivals, Quantum is also a tape vendor and it is also taking steps to better integrate deduplicated data with tape backup.
The DXi7500 now supports application-aware tape creation through EMC NetWorker, a feature it previously only supported with Symantec NetBackup. This capability lets NetWorker track multiple copies of the same data on disk and tape, and customers can set different expiration policies on each set. Quantum also supports Shadow Tape Creation for CommVault Galaxy, Heweltt-Packard DataProtector and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, which lets those applications see a virtual copy of data and keep a physical copy for restores directly through the backup app.
The new CLI will let customers script processes, and enhanced port management allows them to separate backup, replication and management tasks on individual ports.
Taneja Group analyst Eric Burgener says Quantum has broken little new ground with its upgrades, but it's important to integrate deduplication with replication and other features.
"None of the items look huge on their own, but they make it easier to manage," Burgener said. "Deduplication and replication go together well. They let you move much larger data sets out without having to buy additional bandwidth. Nobody just backs up data anymore, they always want to move it out somewhere else."
The new features are available from Quantum's DXi7500 enterprise system and its midrange DXi7500 Express system now. EMC, which OEMs Quantum dedupe systems and software, is expected to offer t