Fibre Channel director face-off: Brocade vs. Cisco
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| Director FAQs
Doug Ingraham, Brocade Communications Systems Inc.'s senior director of
SAN product management, and Deepak Munjal, Cisco's data center solutions senior marketing manager,
answer some FAQs about their respective 48000 Director and MDS 9513 Multilayer
Director.
Under what circumstances should users deploy application blades in Fibre
Channel (FC) directors?
- Brocade: "Use a separate device to separately manage and administer
applications based on their operational processes. Use a director blade when an open director slot
is available; the throughput requirement is such that having a backplane bandwidth is an advantage
over an ISL [interswitch link] trunk and the same administrator who manages the director also
manages the application service."
- Cisco: "Since we support VSAN technology in the MDS 9513 SAN-OS, SAN
virtualization is the primary play right now. EMC [Corp.]'s RecoverPoint and Incipient [Inc.]'s
Network Storage Platform are examples of products taking advantage of the MDS advanced feature
set."
|
- Analysis: Cisco currently provides a richer set of fabric services
for application blades.
What's your FC director roadmap?
- Brocade: "The 48000 sits at the core and other FC directors and
switches fan into it. Going forward, McData's EFCM [Enterprise Fabric Connectivity Manager]
management software will become the de facto management platform for all of our products. We have a
major product upgrade planned for early 2008."
- Cisco: "We expect the trend toward integrating more fabric services
into the MDS 9513 SAN-OS to continue. We will continue to integrate appliance functionality onto a
blade and, once it evolves enough and the chips mature, move it to the core SAN-OS."
- Analysis: For Brocade to remain the leading FC switch vendor, it
needs to knock the socks off data center managers with the next-generation 48000 release (in 2008)
with new features and heightened integration with its M-Series FC directors.
What recommendations do you have for management of your FC director
postconsolidation?
- Brocade: "There are two major areas in which customers need to
manage SANs: proactive fault detection and zoning. Brocade SAN Health monitors SANs and provides
comprehensive support postconsolidation, while Brocade provides five zoning options. We let
customers select the zoning option that makes the most sense to them rather than forcing them down
a particular path."
- Cisco: "Consolidate disparate SAN and storage groups into one unit.
SAN and LAN teams should also begin discussions as we anticipate a similar convergence to occur
between these two groups."
- Analysis: These answers reflect their respective architectures.
Cisco wants everyone to do everything the same way, and Brocade gives users a choice of how they
manage their data.
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This was first published in August 2007
Storage Management Strategies for the CIO
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