Brocade ups the bar for the competition

Although Brocade has long enjoyed a dominant position in the Fibre Channel switch market, analysts were questioning its dominance as no new products have emerged from the company’s stable for a long time. At the same time it is beseiged by competitors such as Cisco and McData. With the launch of a product line aimed at SMEs, Brocade has again upped the ante, says Srikanth R P

With entry-level switches, we will support our OEM partners who are trying to bring low-cost SANs to market, says Tom Buiocchi

Traditionally, Brocade- ade’s competitor has always been McData. While McData was seen as a b player in the high-end market, Brocade was believed to be dominant in the mid-sized segment. Cisco’s arrival has changed the scene. Its current focus is more on the high end of the segment. Brocade has not been affected to the same extent as its rival, McData. However, Brocade is not taking Cisco lightly and it has launched a series of products to extend its leadership in the high-end market as well as the small and medium enterprises space.

Brocade recently launched a series of products that cater to both these markets. For tapping the high end of the market, Brocade has announced a new director-class switch christened the Silkworm 24000. While its predecessor, the Silkworm 12000, could scale up to 128 ports, it was done by using two separate 64-port switches. This configuration led customers to believe that the product was not good enough for their data centre requirements. However, with the Silkworm 24000 128-port switch the company has addressed the problem of scalability.

SMEs Ahoy!

But the biggest impact of Brocade’s announcement will be felt in the SME space where it does not face any competition from its traditional rivals. In addition to the high-end switch, Brocade has launched two new switches, the Silkworm 3250 and Silkworm 3850, both aimed at the SME market. Tom Buiocchi, vice president, Product Marketing, Brocade Communications Systems, explains, “Till date, SMEs have stayed away from investing in SANs as they are believed to be expensive to purchase and manage. But with entry-level switches, we would be addressing a big need for our OEM partners who are trying to bring low-cost SANs to market.” Multiple configurations of the two switches are available to suit the requirements of SMEs. Brocade claims that the switches are capable of scaling up or down according to the needs of users. The pricing would depend on the functionality of the products.

Innovation is the name of the game

Brocade has also tried to gain an advantage over its competitors by announcing innovative products such as a multi-protocol router. This router lets enterprises exchange data between heterogeneous networked storage systems that support different connection standards, either the Internet Protocol based iSCSI or Fibre Channel. Buiocchi says that the product will help users extend SANs over WAN IP networks while letting iSCSI networks bridge into Fibre Channel SANs.

While Brocade has traditionally enjoyed a dominant role in the Fibre Channel switch market, Buiocchi insists that the company’s products are ready to support any technology. Says he, “Unlike the common perception that iSCSI is going to replace Fibre Channel networks, we believe that iSCSI is going to complement Fibre Channel. For example, iSCSI would be useful in stretching the SAN.” In India, the company is anticipating demand from the SME space for its low-cost switches.

While most of its competitors have a similar product line, Brocade has a dominant market share. The few customer deals that Brocade had lost to its competitors have been made up for by its new product line that can meet the end-to-end storage requirements of all types of customers.

srikanth@expresscomputeronline.com