The newly revamped Brocade SAN switch product line (Brocade also offers core enterprise scale SAN directors under the "SAN Directors" product line) is offered in three primary models all boasting port speeds of up to 8 Gb/sec (with auto-sensing capabilities to support 1, 2, or 4 Gb/sec communications and support for 4 Gb/sec SFPs). From 8 to 80 ports are available, depending on the model, with the vendor's "Ports On Demand" feature enabled on all three models allowing purchasers to start with a smaller number of ports enabled and activate the additional ports via licensing upgrades when needed.

Aditional features common to each of the switches include the vendor's EZSwitchSetup wizard; Microsoft Simple SAN compatibility; support for ISL trunking of up to 8 ports; support for Brocade FOS or M-EOS fabrics (with certified maximums of 56 and 31 domains, respectively); support for E, F, M, or FL port configurations; management via CLI, Brocade Web Tools, Brocade EFCM/Fabric Manager, and a USB port (firmware upgrades/log file downloads), as well as support for SNMP v1/v3, and support for the vendor's Adaptive Networking services. The latter feature, in particular, enables the optimization of fabric traffic and include QoS tools, Ingress Rate Limiting (restricts data flow from less critical hosts), Traffic Isolation (assigns high-bandwidth flows to specified ISLs, and Top Talkers, which reports the top traffic by bandwidth in real-time. And a few of the other available Fabric Services enabled on the switches include SNS, NTP, Dynamic Path Selection, NPIV, Registered State Change Notification, and more.

The initial three models of the revamped SAN switch product line include the 300, the 5100, and the 5300.

The 300 is a 1U switch with 24 ports that can be activated in 8 port increments. The 300 can be configured to operate as a switch (ports can be configured as E, F, M, FL, or N) or as an Access Gateway (default port mapping is 16 F, 8 N); though the vendor warns that not all Fabric Services are available (or applicable) when the unit is running as an Access Gateway.

The 5100 is also a 1U switch, with 40 ports (also activated in 8 port increments). Among other features, the 5100 supports distance connections of up to 3400 km (the other two switches support connections of up to 600 km), and additionally supports the vendor's Fibre Channel Integrated Routing, which provides native FC routing on a per port basis and therefore enabled selective device-sharing within a single switch. FICON support (including cascading and CUP) is also available on a port-by-port basis.

Finally, the 5300 is a 2U switch with 80 ports (activated in 16 port increments).

The switches are available now from Brocade, IBM, and Sun; with availability from the remaining OEMs expected in mid-2008. Visit the vendor's Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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