EMC Connects With Data Center Fabric

By Jeff Feinman

April 1, 2008 —  EMC has polished up an 8 gigabit-per-second (Gbit/sec) Fibre Channel director for the Data Center Fabric architecture.

The Connectrix ED-DCX-B is EMC’s resold version of the Brocade DCX Backbone, a network infrastructure for both open systems and mainframe environments. Brocade is a data center networking company that formed the Data Center Fabric architecture, which creates protocols between applications and storage.

EMC’s Connectrix ED-DCX-B, released in mid-March, enables consolidation of virtual and physical servers and storage pools, multiprotocol integration, and the reduction of operational costs, according to the company. Company executives claim its 8Gbit/sec capabilities are double that of existing directors. EMC said it believes the Fibre Channel director will be a platform for future networking capabilities, providing Fibre Channel services for the data center as well as additional specialized fabric and data center application services.

Multiple blade options for server-to-storage connectivity are available in the Connectrix ED-DCX-B. The 8Gbit/sec Fibre Channel blades are available in 16, 32, and 48 ports for a maximum configuration of up to 384 ports in a single domain. A feature called Adaptive Networking Services aims at ensuring optimized fabric behavior and ample bandwidth for mission-critical applications. Additionally, there is interoperability with Connectrix M-series switches and directors, and Admin Domains to segregate access to shared fabric resources.



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