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| Lam discusses highlights of the Brocade SLX 9850. |
Brocade has announced the Brocade SLX 9850, a data centre routing solution designed to support exponential growth in network traffic and deliver the functionality that organisations require as they accelerate their digital transformation.
The SLX 9850 router provides density, scale and performance for 10/40/100GbE data centre use cases. The SLX 9850 router includes the embedded Brocade SLX Insight Architecture that delivers pervasive network visibility for insights to meet service levels. The SLX 9850 also takes advantage of Brocade Workflow Composer to provide server-based, DevOps-style network automation that integrates across IT domains for end-to-end workflow automation.
Lam noted that Brocade Workflow Composer enables end-to-end IT workflow automation across the compute, storage and network domains. Built on the StackStorm open source project, which Brocade acquired in March 2016, the solution enables event-driven actions to be customised and reused, Lam said.
Gartner forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30% from 2015, and will reach 20.8 billion by 2020*. In 2021, video will account for about 70% of mobile data traffic**. With cloud services, video streaming, Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile connectivity growing at exponential rates, organisations must ensure that the infrastructure they deploy today can support dramatic future traffic growth. At the same time, as network operational complexity continues to grow, improved visibility and automation are becoming essential to achieving business agility.
“Customers tell us that they need networking solutions that not only address their immediate requirements, but that will sustain the next several generations of port speeds and densities, while delivering advanced capabilities to help deeply analyse network traffic as well as automate network operations,” said CK Lam, Director of Data Center Fabric and Virtualization for Asia Pacific, Brocade.
Lam noted that Brocade Workflow Composer enables end-to-end IT workflow automation across the compute, storage and network domains. Built on the StackStorm open source project, which Brocade acquired in March 2016, the solution enables event-driven actions to be customised and reused, Lam said.
Gartner forecasts that 6.4 billion connected things will be in use worldwide in 2016, up 30% from 2015, and will reach 20.8 billion by 2020*. In 2021, video will account for about 70% of mobile data traffic**. With cloud services, video streaming, Internet of Things (IoT) and mobile connectivity growing at exponential rates, organisations must ensure that the infrastructure they deploy today can support dramatic future traffic growth. At the same time, as network operational complexity continues to grow, improved visibility and automation are becoming essential to achieving business agility.
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| Source: Brocade. The Brocade SLX 9850 accommodates 1.5 RU line cards. |
“The Brocade SLX 9850 routing solution was designed to address these needs with an innovative, extensible architecture providing organisations with maximum platform longevity, combined with advancements to deliver unparalleled network visibility and automation.”
Lam explained that the 1.5 RU cards break out of the usual 1 or 2 RU standard chassis while offering more port density. At the same time Brocade has done away with the mid-plane resulting in better airflow. He explained that traditional hardware have a circuit board between the line cards and the switch fabric cards to interconnect the two; the SLX 9850 connects line cards directly to the switch fabric instead.
Key features include:
Lam explained that the 1.5 RU cards break out of the usual 1 or 2 RU standard chassis while offering more port density. At the same time Brocade has done away with the mid-plane resulting in better airflow. He explained that traditional hardware have a circuit board between the line cards and the switch fabric cards to interconnect the two; the SLX 9850 connects line cards directly to the switch fabric instead.
Key features include:
The Brocade SLX Insight Architecture provides a new approach to network monitoring and troubleshooting, making it faster, easier and more cost-effective to obtain comprehensive, real-time visibility that is required for network operations and automation. By embedding network visibility on every router, organisations can achieve pervasive visibility throughout the network to quickly identify problems, accelerate mean-time-to-remediation and improve overall service levels.
Brocade SLX Insight Architecture
The architecture includes an open kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) environment to run third-party and customer-specific monitoring, troubleshooting and analytics applications. It also provides a dedicated 10 GbE analytics path between the packet processor on each SLX 9850 interface module and the KVM environment on the management modules. This allows applications running in the KVM environment to extract data via an internal, isolated link, without disrupting forwarding or control plane traffic. To deliver the captured data to analytics applications off the platform, the SLX Insight Architecture provides flexible streaming options, including a dedicated 10 GbE services port on each management module for out-of-band streaming as well as streaming via any interface module port.
The Brocade Workflow Composer server-based network automation platform helps organisations improve business agility and accelerate innovation by automating the entire network lifecycle—from initial provisioning and validation to troubleshooting and remediation of multivendor networks. Powered by the StackStorm open source project, Workflow Composer also automates workflows across multiple IT domains within the services delivery chain—such as network, compute, storage and applications—to bridge organisational silos within the data centre. Brocade Workflow Composer now supports the SLX 9850 and provides turnkey, customisable and do-it-yourself network workflows enabling customers to embrace automation at their own pace.
The Brocade SLX 9850 delivers 230 Tbps non-blocking chassis fabric capacity, providing 10/40/100 GbE prices and port densities per blade. With a unique 1.5 RU modular line card, the SLX 9850 can support up to four million routes, two million statistics and two million policies to address the exponential growth of network bandwidth, devices and services today and in the future.
“There’s no question that proliferating mobility, the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT), and increased video traffic strain the bandwidth limits of existing data centre and wire area networks (WANs). When one also considers the lack of real-time visibility and automation, the network becomes a significant inhibitor to business agility. Embedded functionality such as the Brocade SLX Insight Architecture allows customers to tune their visibility requirements across all routers in the network based on the needs of the business. This approach will help streamline operations without impacting performance,” said Brad Casemore, Research Director, Data Center Networks, IDC.
Lam said Brocade is targeting companies which really need the network visibility, including communications and cloud service providers, Internet exchanges, colocation providers and large enterprises. “Service providers would be interested in the analytics and the scalability,” he said.
Interested?
The Brocade SLX 9850 routing solution will be generally available in Q416. The Brocade Workflow Composer is generally available today.
Get the free trial for Brocade Workflow Composer
Read the IDC Analyst Connection: Modernizing Data Center Networks for Digital Transformation
Get the free trial for Brocade Workflow Composer
Read the IDC Analyst Connection: Modernizing Data Center Networks for Digital Transformation
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