Companies, organizations and governments will be able to internetwork their
Bob Woods is managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.com
storage-area networks (SANs) across metropolitan and wide area networks
(MANs and WANs) as the result of a new deal signed between Brocade
Communications Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif. and
Canada’s Nortel Networks .
Brocade, which develops intelligent platform for networking storage, and
networking giant Nortel today announced several joint initiatives in the
optical SAN market. The two said they would expand their already-existing
relationship accelerate deployment of optical SAN solutions to their mutual
customers around the world. Both companies also said they would make
available three jointly developed and pre-tested applications that will let
enterprises internetwork their SANs via optical technology.
The two companies said they have finished “extensive interoperability
testing” between Nortel’s OPTera Metro 5100 and 5200 Multiservice
Platforms, which are metro dense-wave division multiplexing (DWDM) products,
and Brocade’s intelligent fabric switches, including Brocade’s recently
announced 2 gigabits per second (Gbps) SilkWorm 3200, 3800 and 12000.
Nortel’s OPTera Metro 5100 and 5200 platforms are the first DWDM products to
be “Fabric Aware” tested and qualified with the complete Brocade SilkWorm
family of SAN infrastructure, officials said.
Brocade and Nortel have also developed and pre-tested three new
configurations for remote mirroring, remote consolidated backup, and remote
centralized storage. As a result of the testing and validation, the two
companies have introduced joint SOLUTIONware application notes that provide
detailed instructions on how to configure and deploy Nortel Networks optical
infrastructure in a Brocade SAN environment.
Because Brocade fabrics can be internetworked over distances using optical
infrastructure from Nortel, enterprises can implement business-continuance
services like data mirroring, data replication, electronic tape vaulting,
and remote server clustering to protect critical business information.
“The combination of the Brocade intelligent platform for storage networking
with Nortel Networks OPTera Metro 5100 and 5200 Multiservice Platforms
creates a reliable, scalable infrastructure that optimizes SAN manageability
and performance across the metro area,” said Jeffrey Brooks, Brocade chief
marketing officer.
Today’s news is welcome for Nortel. On Monday, the company’s stock hit its
lowest point since 1993 after it said it would file its intent to sell up to
$2.5 billion of debt and equity in the U.S. and Canada. Investors hit the
“sell” button because they thought the sale would dilute their equity value
in the networker.
In early morning trading today, Nortel shares were up three cents or 1.15%
at $2.65 each. Brocade, on the other hand, was up $1.22 or 5.6% at $23 per
share.
Nortel, Brocade Team for Optical SANs
