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Brocade X6 Directors Datasheet DATA SHEET Brocade X6 Directors Network Innovation for the Virtualized, All-Flash Data Center Digital transformation is pushing mission-critical storage environments to the limit, with users expecting data to be accessible from anywhere, at HIGHLIGHTS any time, on any device. Faced with exponential data growth, the network • Enhances operational stability, must evolve to enable businesses to thrive in this new era. To meet maximizes application performance, and increases business agility with these dynamic and growing business demands, organizations need to enterprise-class Gen 6 directors deploy infrastructure that can deliver greater consistency, predictability, • Accelerates application response time and performance. Legacy infrastructure, however, was not designed by up to 71 percent across 32 Gbps to support the performance requirements of evolving workloads and links flash-based storage technology. In fact, an aging network will impede • Consolidates infrastructure with the performance of an all-flash data center. A new approach to storage 128 Gbps Brocade UltraScale ICL connectivity for simpler, flatter, low- networking is needed to enable databases, virtual servers, desktops, and latency fabrics critical applications, and to unlock the full capabilities of flash. By treating • Simplifies end-to-end management the network as a strategic part of a storage environment, organizations of large-scale environments can maximize their productivity and efficiency even as they rapidly scale by automating monitoring and diagnostics their environments. • Automatically detects degraded application or device performance The Brocade® X6 Director with Brocade and insight to quickly identify problems through integrated network sensors Fabric Vision™ technology combines and achieve critical Service Level • Extends replication over distance with innovative hardware, software, and Agreements (SLAs). Breakthrough a highly scalable extension solution for integrated network sensors to ensure 32 Gbps performance accelerates Fibre Channel, IP, and FICON the industry’s highest level of operational application response time by up to • Simplifies configuration automation stability and redefine application 71 percent, eliminating IO bottlenecks, and enables integrated advanced performance. It provides a modular and unleashes the full performance of services across the Fabric with standard REST APIs building block for increased scalability flash and next-generation Non-Volatile to accommodate growth for large-scale Memory Express (NVMe)-based storage. • Seamlessly integrates next-generation NVMe over Fabrics with Gen 6 Fibre enterprise infrastructures. And with diverse deployment options, organizations can seamlessly adapt and Channel networks without a disruptive Fabric Vision technology enhances rip and replace optimize their businesses to meet next- visibility into the health of storage generation storage requirements. • Mitigates risk with backward- environments, delivering greater control compatibility while further protecting future investments with Gen 7-ready support Fibre Channel device port blade provides thresholds and generates alerts. Integrated GEN 6 FIBRE CHANNEL 48 32 Gbps Fibre Channel ports. To application- and device-level IO latency Brocade Gen 6 Fibre Channel is the support disaster recovery and data and IOPS monitoring provides the ability purpose-built network infrastructure protection storage solutions over long to baseline application performance and for mission-critical storage, delivering distances, the Brocade SX6 Extension detect degraded performance. Integrated operational stability, breakthrough Blade provides 16 32 Gbps Fibre network sensors provide IO performance performance, and increased business Channel ports, 16 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet management that is designed to avoid agility to accelerate data access, adapt to evolving requirements, and drive always- (GbE) ports, and 2 40 GbE ports for Fibre dependence on invasive and disruptive on business operations. The Brocade Channel and IP replication traffic. physical taps. X6 Director with Gen 6 Fibre Channel, Brocade directors build upon years Innovative Fabric Vision monitoring, Brocade Fabric Vision technology, and IO Insight delivers unmatched of innovation and leverage the core management, and diagnostic capabilities 32 Gbps performance, data center-proven technology of Brocade systems to enable administrators to avoid problems availability, and seamless scalability to consistently deliver five-nines availability in before they impact operations. Additional ensure greater consistency, predictability, the world’s most demanding data centers. Fabric Vision capabilities include: and performance. And with non-disruptive, hot-pluggable • Monitoring and Alerting Policy components and a no-single-point-of- Suite (MAPS): Simplifies fabric-wide failure design, the Brocade X6 is truly threshold configuration, monitoring, the enterprise-class director for today’s Purpose-Built for Enterprise and alerting with prebuilt, rule-/policy- storage infrastructure. Deployments based templates. Administrators can Designed to meet relentless growth and Enhanced Operational configure the entire fabric (or multiple mission-critical application demands, Stability for Always-on fabrics) at one time using common Brocade X6 Directors are the right Business Operations rules and policies, or customize policies platform for large enterprise environments for specific ports or switch elements. The Brocade X6 Director with Fabric that require increased capacity, greater In addition, administrators can include Vision technology provides a breakthrough throughput, and higher levels of resiliency. IO Insight metrics in MAPS policies to hardware and software solution that helps understand the IO profile as well as to The Brocade X6 Director is available in simplify monitoring, increase operational be notified of storage IO performance two modular form factors. This modular stability, and dramatically reduce costs. degradation. chassis design increases business agility Fabric Vision technology now includes IO with seamless storage connectivity Insight, which provides organizations with • Fabric Performance Impact (FPI) and flexible deployment offerings. Built deeper visibility into the performance of Monitoring: Leverages predefined for large enterprise networks, the 14U their environments. This enhanced visibility MAPS policies to automatically detect Brocade X6-8 has eight vertical blade enables quick identification of degraded and alert administrators to different slots to provide up to 384 32 Gbps Fibre application performance at host and latency severity levels, and to identify Channel device ports and 32 additional storage tiers, reducing time to resolution. slow drain devices that could impact 128 Gbps Brocade UltraScale Inter- network performance. This feature IO Insight proactively monitors IO Chassis Link (ICL) ports. Built for midsize identifies various latency severity levels, performance and behavior through networks, the 8U Brocade X6-4 has four pinpointing exactly which devices integrated network sensors, providing horizontal blade slots to provide up to 192 are causing or are impacted by a deep insight into problems and helping to 32 Gbps Fibre Channel device ports and bottlenecked port, and quarantines slow ensure service levels. This capability non- 16 additional 128 Gbps UltraScale ICL drain devices automatically to prevent disruptively and non-intrusively gathers ports. Each blade slot can be populated buffer credit starvation. IO statistics from any device port, which with two optional blades. For device feeds a monitoring policy that measures connectivity, the Brocade FC32-48 2 • Dashboards: Provides integrated at- to a specific target/LUN, or across a a-glance views that display an overall specific ISL or IFL. Additionally, they BROCADE FABRIC VISION SAN health view, along with details can perform LUN-level monitoring TECHNOLOGY on out-of-range conditions, to help of specific frame types to identify Brocade Fabric Vision technology with administrators easily identify trends and resource contention or congestion that IO Insight, an extension of Gen 6 Fibre quickly pinpoint issues occurring on a is impacting application performance. Channel, provides unprecedented insight and visibility across the storage network switch or in a fabric. – Flow Learning: Enables administrators with powerful integrated monitoring, • Configuration and Operational to non-disruptively discover all flows management, and diagnostic tools that Monitoring Policy Automation that go to or come from a specific enable organizations to: Services Suite (COMPASS): Simplifies host port or a storage port, or traverse Simplify monitoring: deployment, safeguards consistency, ISLs/IFLs or FCIP tunnels to monitor • Deploy more than 20 years of storage and increases operational efficiencies fabric-wide application performance. networking best practices with a single of larger environments with automated In addition, administrators can discover click switch and fabric configuration services. top and bottom bandwidth-consuming • Leverage visibility into storage IO health Administrators can configure a template devices and manage capacity and performance with key latency and or adopt an existing configuration to planning. performance metrics to maintain SLA compliance seamlessly deploy a configuration – Flow Generator: Provides a built-in across the fabric. In addition, they can • Gain comprehensive visibility into
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