No SAN is an island
No SAN is an island
Brocade has released a new solution that has the ability to connect multiple storage systems to servers, allowing companies to have greater visibility over all of their information.
Brocade claims that its Multiprotocol Router is the first of its kind in the world to join such a wide variety of storage systems together.
It can join tape arrays with large and small SAN islands and other storage systems without causing any problems between the connections. This could not be done previously, because there was not a device available to integrate these different systems.
Jay Kidd, vice president of group CTO infrastructure systems for Brocade Communications explained why this new device will help reduce operational costs and save time for businesses.
"When people want to move information from one storage system to another one, they usually have to pull out a bit of cable and drag it across the floor to connect the systems together. This won't need to happen anymore because our Multiprotocol router matches them all together on a port-by-port basis. And it does not damage the configuration of these different systems either.
"It basically acts as a translator for the systems. The person overseeing this data can use software to look at all of this data in different systems, although it is all stored in different types of storage arrays. This flexibility allows data to be retrieved and moved with a huge amount of ease."
The Multiprotocol SAN Routing services includes three types of services: The Fibre Channel Routing Service (FCRS) for FC-to-FC routing, FCIP Tunnelling Service for distance extension, and iSCSI Gateway Service for connecting low cost servers to Fibre Channel resources.
These services provide new options for consolidating SAN islands and extending SAN benefits over multiple networks, to larger SAN sizes, and across longer distances.
By integrating multiple services in a central platform, the Multiprotocol aims to help provide a flexible foundation for implementing a utility computing infrastructure and efficient Information Lifecycle Management within a familiar Brocade SAN environment.
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