DATA SHEET

Brocade SX6 Extension Blade

Purpose-Built Extension Solution for Business Resiliency Connecting distributed data centers enables data mobility for advanced data protection. Today’s IT organizations are under pressure to keep HIGHLIGHTS pace with the growing avalanche of data traffic between data centers •• Accelerates data replication across data and the changes driven by virtualized application workloads within Fibre centers to meet recovery objectives and Channel and IP storage environments. Also faced with rising Service secure data flows over distance Level Agreement (SLA) requirements and recovery expectations, •• Consolidates Fibre Channel and IP enterprise data centers need their disaster recovery infrastructure to storage replication traffic within a single ensure fast, continuous, and easy replication of mission-critical data blade with flexible multiprotocol port to anywhere in the world. Storage administrators therefore need to connectivity replicate large amounts of data quickly, securely, reliably, and simply •• Connects more Fibre Channel and IP devices with industry-leading port density while minimizing operational and capital expenses. and “scale as you grow” flexibility •• Centralizes management of Fibre To address this challenge, the Brocade® environments, the Brocade SX6 blade Channel and IP storage extension traffic SX6 Extension Blade with Brocade is designed for high-speed, secure while extending Brocade Fabric Vision Fabric Vision™ technology, designed transport of data between data centers technology over distance for greater for the Brocade X6 Director, provides a while maintaining uptime. This enterprise- control and insight Fibre Channel and IP storage replication class solution enables storage and •• Extends proactive monitoring and alerting solution that moves more data over mainframe administrators to optimize between data centers to automatically distance faster, delivers security without and manage the use of WAN bandwidth, detect WAN anomalies and simplify compromising performance, and secure data over distance, and minimize troubleshooting of end-to-end IO flows scales to support the world’s most the impact of disruptions to help ensure over distance, avoiding unplanned demanding environments. This solution replication objectives are met. downtime delivers industry-leading performance, •• Provides load balancing and network strong security, continuous availability, Accelerating Performance resilience with Extension Trunking and unmatched flexibility, and simplified over Distance to Meet Adaptive Rate Limiting to increase WAN operations to handle the unrelenting Recovery Objectives utilization and protect against WAN link transfer of data between data centers and The Brocade SX6 Extension Blade is failures to maintain SLAs. an ideal platform for building a high- •• Achieves always-on business operations performance data center extension A purpose-built data center extension with non-disruptive firmware upgrades infrastructure for replication and backup and maximizes availability with redundant, solution for Fibre Channel and IP storage hot-pluggable chassis components Controller environment Synchronous and Centralized Backup Asynchronous Replication and Archiving

IP WAN IP WAN

Primary Secondary Central Backup Site Site Site

Figure 1: The Brocade SX6 Extension Blade provides scalable deployment options to extend Fibre Channel and IP storage replication over long distance for disaster recovery and data protection.

solutions (see Figure 1). It leverages and tape protocol acceleration, WAN- •• PerPriority TCP Quality of Service any type of inter-data center WAN optimized TCP, and other extension (PTQ): Provides high-, medium-, and transport to extend open systems and networking technologies. Advanced low-priority handling of Fibre Channel mainframe storage applications over any features and technologies include: and Brocade IP Extension flows within distance. Without the use of extension, the same tunnel for transmission over •• IPsec: Ensures secure transport over those distances are often impossible or the WAN using autonomous, individual WAN links by encrypting data-in- impractical. TCP sessions per QoS priority. flight with the hardware-implemented The advanced performance—up to 80 standard 256-bit AES algorithm without •• Extension Trunking: Combines multiple Gbps per blade—and network optimization a performance penalty or excessive WAN connections into a single, logical, features of the Brocade SX6 Extension added latency. high-bandwidth trunk, providing active Blade enable replication and backup load balancing and network resilience to •• Unparalleled, extremely efficient applications to move more data over protect against WAN link failures. architecture: Uniquely permits the metro and WAN links in less time, and high-speed, low-latency processing •• Lossless Link Loss (LLL): Is part of optimize available WAN bandwidth. In of IP datagrams and Fibre Channel/ Extension Trunking, providing recovery addition, the Brocade SX6 secures data FICON® frames, making extension of of data lost in-flight when a link goes flows over distance with no performance synchronous applications possible. offline. From the perspective of the penalty to minimize exposure to storage applications, nothing ever data breaches between data centers. •• WAN-optimized TCP: Offers an happened because all data is delivered— Supporting up to 250 ms Round-Trip aggressive TCP stack, optimizing TCP and delivered in order. Time (RTT) latency, the Brocade SX6 window size and flow control, and enables extension over distances up to accelerating TCP transport for high •• Failover/failback with failover groups: 37,500 kilometers (23,400 miles). throughput storage applications. Circuits are assigned metrics and put in a failover group. If all circuits of the The Brocade SX6 Extension Blade •• Streams: Is a feature of WAN- lower metric within the failover group maximizes utilization of WAN links optimized TCP and used with Brocade go offline, the higher metric circuits through protocol optimization technology IP Extension to prevent Head-of-Line take over. This uses LLL, and all data and expands WAN bandwidth with Blocking (HoLB) across the WAN. is delivered and delivered in order. The hardware-based compression, disk storage application will not know that a failover/failback has occurred.

2 •• Adaptive Rate Limiting: Dynamically Channel, consistently delivering 99.9999 network paths, and proper setup of adjusts bandwidth sharing between percent uptime in the world’s most configurations prior to deployment. In minimum and maximum rate limits demanding data centers. The Brocade addition, administrators can troubleshoot to optimize bandwidth utilization and X6 Director delivers enterprise-class the physical infrastructure to ease maintain maximum WAN performance availability features, such as hot-pluggable deployment and avoid potential issues. during disruptions. chassis components with non-disruptive To protect against WAN link failure and software upgrades to maximize •• Advanced compression architecture: avoid restart or resync events, the Brocade application uptime and minimize outages. Provides multiple modes to optimize SX6 Extension Blade leverages Brocade This combines director-class availability compression ratios for various WAN-optimized TCP to ensure in-order with Brocade SX6 innovative extension throughput requirements. lossless transmission of data. In addition, features and the industry’s only WAN- the Brocade SX6 with Extension Trunking •• FCIP Fast Write (FCIP-FW): Accelerates side, non-disruptive firmware upgrades protects against WAN link failures with SCSI write processing, maximizing to achieve always-on business operations tunnel redundancy for lossless path performance of synchronous and and maximize application uptime. These failover and guaranteed in-order data asynchronous replication applications unique capabilities enable a high- delivery using LLL. The advanced across high-latency WAN connections performance and highly reliable network Extension Trunking feature allows multiple over any distance. infrastructure for disaster recovery and network paths to be used simultaneously. data protection. •• Open Systems Tape Pipelining When there is a failure for a network path, (OSTP): Accelerates read and write tape Extension Trunking will automatically processing over distance, significantly retransmit the lost packets over a non- reducing backup and recovery times BROCADE SX6 EXTENSION BLADE: affected WAN link to maintain overall data over distance anywhere in the world. DELIVERING BUSINESS RESILIENCY integrity. The replication application will be AT SCALE •• Advanced Accelerator for FICON: Uses protected and continue with no disruption. The Brocade SX6 Extension Blade is advanced networking technologies, data To maintain replication application a multiprotocol extension solution that management techniques, and protocol securely moves more data over distance performance during failure situations, intelligence to accelerate IBM zGlobal faster, while scaling to support the world’s the Brocade SX6 features Adaptive Rate Mirror (zGM), mainframe tape read most demanding environments. With Limiting that uses dynamic bandwidth and write operations, and z/OS host Brocade Gen 6 Fibre Channel, IP extension sharing between minimum (floor) and capability, and Brocade Fabric Vision connections to Teradata warehousing maximum (ceiling) rate limits. With systems over distance. technology, this platform delivers industry- leading performance, strong security, Adaptive Rate Limiting, organizations Ensuring Continuous continuous availability, high scalability, and can optimize bandwidth utilization and Availability between Data simplified operations in a flexible blade maintain full WAN performance of the design for the Brocade X6 Director. This link during periods when a path is offline Centers purpose-built extension solution handles due to an extension platform, IP network Today’s organizations depend on fast, the unrelenting growth of data traffic device, or array controller outage. During reliable access to data wherever and between data centers in Fibre Channel, FICON, and IP storage environments. this failure scenario, the other extension whenever needed, regardless of location. switch automatically detects that the first The ramifications and potential business device went idle, and dynamically adjusts impact of an unreliable disaster recovery to utilize 100 percent of the available and data protection infrastructure are The Brocade SX6 provides a suite of WAN bandwidth, providing full throughput. greater than ever. features—from pre-deployment validation In addition, with unprecedented amounts to advanced network failure recovery The Brocade X6 Director and Brocade of storage data crossing extension technologies—to ensure a continuously SX6 Extension Blade combine data connections and consuming larger, faster available storage extension infrastructure. center-proven reliability with an innovative links, Brocade has enhanced Adaptive With built-in Flow Generator and WAN business continuity solution for non- Rate Limiting to react 10 times faster to Test Tool (Wtool), administrators can stop operations. They leverage the core varying traffic patterns that compete for validate conditions of the WAN links, technology of Brocade Gen 6 Fibre WAN bandwidth or use shared interfaces.

3 Brocade extends proactive monitoring With the Brocade SX6, organizations gain Switch in a data center-to-edge between data centers through MAPS and “scale as you grow” flexibility with up to architecture as a cost-effective option Flow Vision to automatically detect WAN four blades within a Brocade X6 Director for connecting primary data centers with anomalies. With real-time information, chassis. Each extension blade provides remote data centers and offices. administrators can pinpoint and isolate 16 32 Gbps Fibre Channel/FICON ports, the issue to either its storage or network 16 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports, Enhancing IP Storage device to accelerate troubleshooting and and 2 40 GbE ports to deliver the high Replication Local avoid unplanned downtime. bandwidth, port density, and throughput Performance over Long required for maximum application Distance Flexible and Scalable performance over WAN connections. IP storage arrays with native replication Multiprotocol Connectivity With industry-leading port density, applications are not built to efficiently Solution for Disaster administrators can connect more Fibre handle latency and packet loss. The Recovery Channel and IP storage devices to scale Brocade SX6 provides a robust IP The Brocade SX6 Extension Blade on demand. extension solution that delivers local provides flexible Fibre Channel and IP performance at long distance—along with To meet current and future requirements, storage replication deployment options strong encryption—for comprehensive with compression enabled, organizations within the Brocade X6 Director, integrating disaster recovery. It leverages Brocade can scale up to 80 Gbps application seamlessly with Fibre Channel blades or TCP Acceleration to help achieve the throughput, depending on the type of providing standalone extension services fastest replication speeds possible from data and the characteristics of the WAN for large-scale, multi-site data center IP storage devices, and Brocade WAN- connection. environments implementing block, file, optimized TCP to ensure in-order lossless and tape data protection solutions. In The Brocade SX6 Extension Blade transmission of IP extension data. addition, a broad range of advanced provides a comprehensive bundle that Brocade IP extension solutions help to extension, FICON, and storage fabric includes an unlimited WAN rate up to 40 significantly increase the performance of services are available to address the Gbps and a set of advanced services: IP storage applications across the WAN— most challenging extension and storage FCIP, IP Extension, Brocade Fabric Vision even with encryption turned on. The more networking requirements. The Brocade technology, Extension Trunking, Adaptive latency and packet loss between the data SX6 is ideal for: Rate Limiting, IPsec, compression, Open centers, the greater the gain. The Brocade Systems Tape Pipelining (OSTP), Fast •• Data protection for open systems and SX6 can move 50 times more data than Write, Adaptive Networking, Extended mainframe native TCP/IP stacks to meet rigorous Fabrics, FICON Management Server recovery objectives. Such performance •• Multi-site synchronous and (CUP), and Advanced FICON Acceleration. gains enable use cases that at one time asynchronous storage replication An optional value-add license for were deemed unfeasible. •• Centralized tape backup, recovery, and Integrated Routing (FCR) is available to IP extension also offers other, more archiving address challenging extension and storage networking requirements in open systems far-reaching benefits. With multiprotocol •• Consolidation of Fibre Channel, environments. port connectivity, organizations can FICON, and IP storage data flows from consolidate IP replication flows, or both IP Organizations can deploy the Brocade heterogeneous arrays storage and Fibre Channel/FICON flows, SX6 and the Brocade 7840 Extension within a single blade, enabling storage

4 administrators to consolidate IO flows tool that proactively monitors storage addition, they can ensure settings do from heterogeneous devices and multiple extension network health based on a not drift over time with COMPASS protocols. The consolidation of these comprehensive set of metrics at tunnel, configuration and policy violation applications into a single, managed tunnel circuit, and QoS (tunnel and circuit) monitoring within Brocade Network between data centers across the WAN has layers. Administrators can configure Advisor dashboards. real operational, availability, security, and multiple fabrics at one time using •• Brocade ClearLink® Diagnostics: performance value. predefined or customized rules and Ensures optical and signal integrity policies for specific ports or switch IP extension supports a range of for Fibre Channel optics and cables, elements. commonly used storage applications, simplifying deployment and support such as array native IP Remote Data •• Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) of high-performance fabrics. ClearLink Replication (RDR), IP-based centralized Monitoring: Uses predefined thresholds Diagnostic Port (D_Port) is an advanced backup, VM replication, host-based and and alerts in conjunction with MAPS capability of Fibre Channel platforms. database replication over IP, NAS head to automatically detect and alert •• Flow Vision: Enables administrators to replication between data centers, and data administrators to severe levels or identify, monitor, and analyze specific migration between data centers. transient spikes of latency, and to identify application flows in order to simplify slow drain devices that could impact troubleshooting, maximize performance, Simplify Management over network performance. This feature uses avoid congestion, and optimize Distance for Greater Control advanced monitoring capabilities and resources. Flow Vision includes: and Insight intuitive MAPS dashboard reporting Extending Brocade Fabric Vision to indicate various latency severity ––Flow Learning: Enables administrators technology between data centers provides levels, pinpointing exactly which to non-disruptively discover all flows unprecedented insight and visibility across devices are causing or are impacted that go to or come from a specific the storage network. With its powerful by a bottlenecked port. This feature host port or a storage port, or traverse integrated monitoring, management, also provides automatic mitigation or ISLs/IFLs or FCIP tunnels to monitor and diagnostic tools, Fabric Vision recovery from the effects of slow drain fabric-wide application performance. technology enables organizations to devices. In addition, administrators can discover minimize the impact of disruptions and top and bottom bandwidth-consuming •• Dashboards: Provides integrated outages for non-stop business operations. devices and manage capacity dashboards that display overall SAN Consolidating Fibre Channel/FICON flows planning. and IP extension health, along with and IP storage flows into a single tunnel details on out-of-range conditions, ––Flow Monitor: Provides contributes significantly to operational and configuration drift to easily identify comprehensive visibility into flows excellence. And by using custom, trends and quickly pinpoint issues across a storage extension network, browser-accessible dashboards for occurring on a switch or in a fabric. including the ability to automatically combined Fibre Channel and IP storage, learn flows and non-disruptively •• Configuration and Operational storage administrators have a centralized monitor flow performance. Monitoring Policy Automation management tool to monitor the health Administrators can monitor all flows Services Suite (COMPASS): Simplifies and performance of their networks. from a specific storage device that deployment, safeguards consistency, The Brocade SX6 Extension Blade are writing to or reading from a and increases operational efficiencies supports the following Fabric Vision destination storage device/LUNs, or of larger environments with automated technology features for storage extension across a storage extension network. switch and fabric configuration services. management: Additionally, they can perform LUN- Administrators can configure a template level monitoring of specific frame •• Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite or adopt an existing configuration types to identify resource contention (MAPS): Provides a prebuilt, policy- as a template and seamlessly scale or congestion that is impacting based threshold monitoring and alerting the configuration across the fabric. In application performance.

5 ––Flow Generator: Provides a built- data, enabling administrators to more Brocade Global Services in traffic generator for pretesting efficiently prioritize their actions and Brocade Global Services has the and validating storage extension maintain network performance. expertise to help organizations build infrastructure—including route Brocade Network Advisor provides scalable, efficient cloud infrastructures. verification, QoS zone setup, extension organizations with a programmable Leveraging 20 years of expertise in trunking configuration, WAN access, Web-based interface through a standard storage, networking, and virtualization, IPsec policy setting, and integrity REST API to reduce operational tasks Brocade Global Services delivers world- of optics, cables, and ports—for by automating zoning, scripting, and class professional services, technical robustness before deploying reporting. To further simplify management support, and education services, applications. tasks, administrators can quickly search enabling organizations to maximize their •• Forward Error Correction (FEC): through events, historical data, base Brocade investments, accelerate new Enables recovery from bit errors in ISLs, inventory, and apply filters. In addition, technology deployments, and optimize the enhancing transmission reliability and standard REST APIs leverage Brocade performance of networking infrastructures. performance. Fabric Vision technology to gain fabric- Maximizing Investments wide health and performance visibility •• Credit Loss Recovery: Helps overcome To help optimize technology investments, within easy-to-read dashboards. performance degradation and Brocade and its partners offer complete congestion due to buffer credit loss. Integrated Architecture and solutions that include professional Brocade Network Advisor Management services, technical support, and education. For more information, contact a Brocade Brocade Network Advisor simplifies The Brocade SX6 utilizes the same ® sales partner or visit www.brocade.com. storage networking management and Brocade Fabric OS that supports the helps organizations dramatically reduce entire Brocade storage networking deployment and configuration times by product family with Gen 6 Fibre allowing fabrics, switches, and ports to Channel. This helps ensure seamless be managed as groups. Consolidated interoperability with advanced features dashboard views across Fibre Channel such as Brocade Fabric Vision technology, and IP storage are available out of Brocade Integrated Routing, and Brocade the box, so teams can immediately Extension Trunking. start monitoring their storage network In addition, organizations can perform resources. Customizable dashboards management and administrative tasks graphically display performance and through familiar Brocade management health indicators, including all data tools, including Brocade Network captured using Brocade Fabric Vision Advisor, Brocade Web Tools, and the technology. To accelerate troubleshooting, Command Line Interface (CLI). Moreover, administrators can use dashboard optional FICON Control Unit Port (CUP) playback to quickly review past events capabilities enable legacy management and to identify problems in the fabric. applications to seamlessly support Dashboards and reports also can be Brocade FICON environments. configured to show only the most relevant

6 Brocade SX6 Extension Blade Specifications

System Architecture

Fibre Channel ports 16 32 Gbps ports; E, F, EX, D, and AE ports

Ethernet ports 16 1/10 GbE ports and two 40 GbE ports

Scalability Full-fabric architecture with 239 switches maximum

Certified maximum Single fabric: 56 domains, 7 hops Multiprotocol routing fabric: 19 hops

Fibre Channel performance Fibre Channel: 4.25 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 8.5 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 10.53 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 14.025 Gbps line speed, full duplex; 28.05 Gbps, full duplex; auto-sensing of 4, 8,16, 32 Gbps port speeds; 10 Gbps optionally programmable to fixed port speed

System scalability Up to four Brocade SX6 blades per Brocade X6 Director family chassis

ISL Trunking Up to eight 32 Gbps ports per ISL trunk; up to 256 Gbps bandwidth per ISL trunk

Fabric latency 700 ns with no contention, cut-through routing at 32 Gbps

Maximum Fibre Channel frame size 2,112-byte payload

Maximum IP MTU size Jumbo frames at 9,216 bytes

Classes of service Class 2, Class 3, Class F (inter-switch frames)

Port types F_Port, E_Port, EX_Port, D_Port, and AE_Port. For FCIP, VE_Port (Virtual E_Port).

Data traffic types Fabric switches supporting unicast

Media types Fibre Channel: Brocade hot-pluggable Small Form Factor (SFP) and SFP+, short wavelength (SWL), long wavelength (LWL), and extended long wavelength (ELWL) transceivers (available wavelength options vary for 16 Gbps and 32 Gbps SFPs) Ethernet: Brocade hot-pluggable Small Form Factor (SFP) and SFP+, short reach wavelength (SRWL), long reach wavelength (LRWL), extended long wavelength (ELWL), and copper SFP/SFP+ transceivers (available reach options vary from 1 GbE, 10 GbE, and 40 GbE)

Fabric services Monitoring and Alerting Policy Suite (MAPS); Flow Vision; Brocade Adaptive Networking (Ingress Rate Limiting, Traffic Isolation, QoS); Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) Monitoring; Slow Drain Device Quarantine (SDDQ); Brocade Advanced Zoning (default zoning, port/WWN zoning, broadcast zoning, peer zoning, target driven zoning); Dynamic Fabric Provisioning (DFP); Dynamic Path Selection (DPS); Brocade Extended Fabrics; Enhanced BB Credit Recovery; FDMI; Frame Redirection; Frame-based Trunking; FSPF; Integrated Routing; IPoFC; Brocade ISL Trunking; Management Server; Configuration and Operational Monitoring Policy Automation Services Suite (COMPASS); NPIV; Time Server; Registered State Change Notification (RSCN); Reliable Commit Service (RCS); Simple Name Server (SNS); Virtual Fabrics (Logical Switch, Logical Fabric); Read Diagnostics Parameter (RDP)

Management

Supported management software HTTP, SNMP v1/v3 (FE MIB, FC Management MIB), SSH; Auditing, Syslog; NTP v3; Brocade Advanced Web Tools; Brocade Network Advisor SAN Enterprise or Brocade Network Advisor SAN Professional/Professional Plus; Command Line Interface (CLI); SMI-S compliant; REST API;

Security AES-GCM-256 encryption on ISLs, AES-GCM-256 IPsec encryption on virtual ISLs (VE_Port), DH- CHAP (between switches and end devices), FCAP switch authentication; FIPS 140-2 L2-compliant, HTTPS, IP filtering, LDAP with IPv6, OpenLDAP, Port Binding, RADIUS, TACACS+, User-defined Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Secure Copy (SCP), Secure RPC, SFTP, SSH v2, SSL, Switch Binding, Trusted Switch

Diagnostics POST and embedded online/offline diagnostics, including ClearLink D_Port, FCIP ping, FCIP traceroute, FCping, Pathinfo (FCtraceroute), Wtool, and Ftrace

7 Brocade SX6 Extension Blade Specifications(continued)

Mechanical

Size Width: 420.6 mm Height: 36.3 mm Depth: 289.8 mm Occupies one slot in a Brocade X6 Director family chassis

System weight 11.5 lb without SFP/SFP+

Environmental

Temperature Operating: 0°C to 40°C (32°F to 104°F) Non-operating: −25°C to 70°C (−13°F to 158°F)

Humidity Operating: 10% to 85% (non-condensing) Non-operating: 10% to 90% (non-condensing)

Altitude Operating: Up to 3,000 m (9,842 ft) Storage: Up to 12 km (39,370 ft)

Shock Operating: 20 g, 6 ms, half-sine Non-operating: 33 g, 11 ms, half-sine, 3/eg Axis

Vibration Operating: 0.5 g sine, 0.4 grms random, 5 to 500 Hz Non-operating: 2.0 g sine, 1.1 grms random 5 to 500 Hz

Power

Maximum power 425 watts

For information about supported SAN standards, visit www.brocade.com/sanstandards. For information about hardware regulatory compliance, visit www.brocade.com/regulatorycompliance. For information about switch and device interoperability, visit www.brocade.com/interoperability.

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