NEW YORK, June 26 NY-Brocade-Tech-Day
NEW YORK, June 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Brocade(R) (Nasdaq: BRCD) will
affirm the strength and direction of its core technologies and chart its plans
and strategies for helping customers migrate to next-generation data center
technologies at an event it will hold today at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York
in front of investors, financial and industry analysts, media and customers.
The event will be webcast starting at 1:00 p.m. EDT at http://www.brcd.com.
The event is the backdrop for Brocade to discuss and detail the company's
current and future technology, product and service plans for its four primary
businesses: Fibre Channel-based storage area network (SAN) connectivity,
server connectivity, file-based data consolidation and management, and
professional services and support.
Brocade will also present its vision and a pragmatic timeline of the
evolution to the next-generation data center networks. Brocade will outline an
application-centric vision of the data center infrastructure, with
intelligent, purpose-built networks that rationally and non disruptively
integrate new technologies such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) and
Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE). This discussion will reiterate and extend
the vision Brocade introduced with the Data Center Fabric (DCF) architecture
and the DCX Backbone platform, and will highlight the advantages over
alternative strategies.
"Brocade is an industry leader in developing technologies to drive
tomorrow's data centers and we realize that any migration of global,
information-based systems needs to be carefully plotted, tested and evaluated
before being put into production," said Mike Klayko, CEO of Brocade. "We
understand our customers' concerns in this area which is why our Data Center
Fabric (DCF) architecture and DCX Backbone platform are designed to enable
customers to migrate to newer technologies on their own timetables while
continuing to enjoy the benefits of the most innovative, high-performance data
center fabric technologies available today."
Recent research from TheInfoPro(R), an independent research network for
the IT industry, supports Brocade's views that while customers are aware of
these developing technologies, their plans are to carefully assess and
evaluate the impact of the new standards and technologies prior to deploying
them into production data center environments. TheInfoPro polled storage and
networking users from 152 Fortune 1000 companies from various industries. On
average, each of these organizations manages 1.5 terabyte of data. Of the
respondents, 84 percent said they have no immediate plans to deploy FCoE and
another 9 percent said it was in their long-term plans. Comparatively, 77
percent of these overall respondents said that they were already using or were
evaluating Fibre Channel technology.
Ongoing Commitment to Fibre Channel Innovation
In alignment with these customer plans, Brocade will also use the
Technology Day to outline its continued investment and on-going commitment to
lead the market in delivering innovative Fibre Channel solutions. For example,
Brocade will discuss its first-to-market success in the SAN switching industry
with 8-gigabit per second (gbps) solutions, giving it considerable
first-mover's advantage. The latest available research from the Dell'Oro
Group, which tracks market information for the SAN switching industry,
confirmed this by showing that Brocade gained nearly 5.5 points of market
share in the high-end -- or the modular switch -- segment versus competitors
in the most recent reported quarter. Rapid customer adoption of the new 8-gbps
Brocade DCX Backbone and DCF architecture played a significant role in this
success, Brocade reported in a related press release
(http://www.brocade.com/news/2008/6_26_DCXmomentum.jsp).
Brocade will also discuss its commitment to future innovation such as
driving and supporting 16-gbps Fibre Channel, the next phase in this
technology's roadmap expected by 2011. As with previous Fibre Channel
advancements, the higher performance through 16-gbps will help customers
further address their data center growth and consolidation needs while
continuing to drive down complexity and operating costs through increased
efficiencies.
"Fibre Channel is here to stay. And from Brocade, you will see us
delivering more -- not less -- in terms of capabilities, innovation and
solutions," said Martin Skagen, Chief Technology Officer of Brocade's Data
Center Infrastructure Division. "We believe this will help us maintain and
grow our leadership position in data center server-to-storage networking for
the next several years."
Outlining Innovation and Realistic Expectations for FCoE, CEE
Brocade will also present its views on the likely evolutionary paths and
customer adoption trends for emerging data center technologies, namely FCoE
and CEE. Brocade believes that these technologies are likely to develop and be
adopted by customers incrementally, to extend their existing networks, with
greatest impact initially at the server-edge. The company will point out that
through this progression FCoE is likely to increase demand for Fibre Channel
technologies by enabling customers to attach more servers to networked
storage.
Brocade will further outline that it expects that the FCoE and CEE
standards will begin to be ratified in 2009 with early adoption of
standards-compliant products to follow shortly afterwards. Brocade expects
that mainstream, large-scale deployments of FCoE and CEE are not likely to
occur until at least 2010. In preparation for this evolutionary path, Brocade
is currently developing, and will soon begin testing solutions based on these
new technologies.
Future FCoE- and CEE- based solutions that the company will discuss at
Technology Day include:
-- FCoE and CEE module options for the DCX Backbone platform, which
further expands the role and performance of data center networks;
-- A 10-gbps FCoE switch enabling efficient server I/O consolidation as a
"top of rack" model or as an edge switch to an existing storage network;
-- Next-generation 10-gbps FCoE server adapters for full-performance
server I/O consolidation and ease-of-management. These next-gen adapters will
extend Brocade's existing portfolio of 4- and 8-gbps Fibre Channel host bus
adapters (HBAs). Brocade today announced the general availability of these new
HBAs through global channel partners. See related press release
(http://www.brocade.com/news/2008/6_26_HBA_GA.jsp ).
Other technology developments to be discussed include:
-- Brocade's plans to extend its file management solutions portfolio to
support content management systems such as Microsoft(R) SharePoint(R) and to
deliver unified file management capabilities for both file server and
web-portal based environments;
-- Broadening of Brocade's professional services capabilities to meet the
evolving requirements of a virtualized data center that will help customers
and partners accelerate and manage their new technology deployments.
"Our message to this audience will be simple: Brocade continues to execute
well on all technology and product fronts in our evolution to become a larger,
more strategic enabler of data center solutions," said Tom Buiocchi, Brocade's
Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. "Key to our ongoing leadership and
growing momentum is that we continue to focus and innovate in our core
technologies but with an eye and a sensible plan toward the migration to the
next-generation data center."
About Brocade
Brocade is the leading provider of data center networking solutions that
help organizations connect, share, and manage their information in the most
efficient manner. Organizations that use Brocade products and services are
better able to optimize their IT infrastructures and ensure compliant data
management. For more information, visit the Brocade Web site at
http://www.brocade.com or contact the company at info@brocade.com.
Brocade is a registered trademark and the Brocade B-wing symbol, DCX, and
DCF are trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the United
States and/or in other countries. Microsoft and SharePoint are registered
trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. All
other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service
marks of, and are used to identify, products or services of their respective
owners.
This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the
Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those
projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk
factors, including but not limited to: (i) adverse changes in general economic
or market conditions; (ii) delays or reductions in information technology
spending; (iii) risks associated with acquisitions and investments, including
the challenges and costs of integration, restructuring and achieving
anticipated synergies; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to
pricing pressures and new product introductions; (v) the relative and varying
rates of product price and component cost declines and the volume and mixture
of product and services revenues; (vi) component and product quality and
availability; (vii) the transition to new products, the uncertainty of
customer acceptance of new product offerings and rapid technological and
market change; (viii) insufficient, excess or obsolete inventory; (ix) war or
acts of terrorism; (x) the ability to attract and retain highly qualified
employees; (xi) fluctuating currency exchange rates; and (xii) other one-time
events and other important factors.
SOURCE Brocade
