Brocade has announced the availability of leading-edge application delivery hardware and software solutions that address the needs of mid-market enterprise customers who are using virtualization and cloud computing solutions to maximize the value of their IT resources.

Today, Brocade introduced a new extension to the Brocade ServerIron ADX 4000 developed to meet the unique needs of mid-market enterprises. The ServerIron ADX 4000 ASM-4 bundle is an entry-level chassis solution that provides industry-leading Layer 4-7 switching performance in a new high-value package to help customers realize the promise of on-demand, automated data center computing. Specifically designed for mid-market enterprise environments, the ServerIron ADX 4000 ASM-4 bundle enables a new class of customers to experience the flexibility and scalability benefits of a modular platform. The license-activated, capacity on-demand scalability of the ASM-4 module enables customers to adopt a "pay-as-you-grow" investment approach, allowing them to double their throughput and future-proof their application delivery networks without adding hardware or removing the switches from the network. The ServerIron ADX 4000 ASM-4 bundle provides eight ports of 1 Gbps small form-factor pluggable (SFP) copper connectivity, with the option to use fiber SFPs on all ports. It also combines breakthrough performance via a highly robust services platform with built-in extensibility and seamless interoperability across fabrics and networking protocols.

Brocade continues to bring greater efficiency, manageability and value to mid-market data center customers with the ServerIron ADX family of products through the Brocade Application Resource Broker software module that provides visibility into application performance across the network and virtual machine (VM) infrastructures. Brocade Application Resource Broker helps ensure that application service level agreements (SLAs) are met by dynamically allocating additional resources to address increases in application load. The software module leverages the unique position of the ServerIron ADX within the network to deliver a wide range of advanced capabilities that are directly built-in to the VMware vSphere interface, including:

-- Real-time monitoring, measurement, correlation and application-centric reporting through the vSphere administrative interface via a client plug-in

-- On-demand, automated, policy-based provisioning and de-provisioning of resources based on application performance metrics from the ServerIron ADX and the VMware vCenter Server

-- Historical tracking and trending of key application performance metrics to reveal changing requirements

Together, the Brocade ServerIron ADX 4000 ASM-4 bundle with Brocade Application Resource Broker form a high-performance application delivery solution for highly virtualized environments and provide an attractive value proposition to mid-market enterprise customers.

"The network plays a critical role in the process of virtual application delivery and is of utmost importance as we look toward the accelerated migration to cloud computing," said Parag Patel, vice president, Global Strategic Alliances, at VMware. "Our partnership with Brocade will help customers tightly integrate networking layers with the VMware platform, thereby streamlining network management and taking a significant step toward delivering IT as a service."

This new offering is the latest in a series of innovations that Brocade has developed to optimize its networking solutions in virtualized IT environments. While server virtualization presents key operational and cost benefits, it has also inherently introduces complexity at the networking level. To address this issue, Brocade recently unveiled Brocade One, a unifying network strategy that illustrates an ongoing commitment to help customers use networking technologies more effectively in migrating towards highly-scalable, simplified and automated virtualized infrastructures. To support this strategy, Brocade has also introduced Brocade Virtual Cluster Switching (VCS), advanced technology that addresses the unique requirements of virtualized data centers. Brocade VCS enables customers to build and manage data center fabrics that can efficiently consolidate and manage tens of thousands of VMs, thereby eliminating the inevitable challenges resulting from traditional Spanning Tree Protocol-based networks.

"Virtualization and cloud computing present highly compelling business benefits for enterprise customers of all sizes, such that Brocade has taken a proactive approach to developing a wide range of new solutions designed to reduce network complexity resulting from the deployment of virtual environments," said Jason Nolet, vice president of the Data Center and Enterprise Networking Group, at Brocade. "Building upon extensive experience in the data center, where reliability and preservation of data integrity are critical, Brocade is committed to creating innovative networking technologies that help customers simplify the implementation and management of virtualizing their applications."

Brocade will showcase the ServerIron ADX 4000 ASM-4 with Brocade Application Resource Broker in Booth #1307 at VMworld 2010 from August 30 to September 2 at Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Availability

The Brocade ServerIron ADX 4000 ASM-4 module will be generally available on September 23, 2010 via select Brocade value-added resellers and directly from Brocade. For more information on Brocade networking solutions for mid-market enterprises, visit www.brocade.com.