Brocade Expands the Effortless Network Strategy with New Campus LAN Innovations


  • New enterprise stackable Brocade ICX 7250 Switch allows organizations to easily scale to address increasing campus bandwidth demands
  • Brocade HyperEdge Architecture Switch Port Extender will provide further network scale and automation with shared services and management consolidation for Brocade ICX switches
  • Brocade ICX product family extends SDN support with new OpenFlow 1.3 switches

Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) today announced new innovations to its campus Local Area Network (LAN) switch family to help organizations realize the vision of The Effortless Network® and build the foundation for the New IP.

The new Brocade® ICX® 7250 switch delivers the industry’s highest 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) port density for any switch in its class to address the onslaught of user video and wireless traffic that is taxing campus networks.

Brocade also unveiled Switch Port Extender, a new HyperEdge® Architecture technology, designed to simplify network deployment and ongoing maintenance. Through added automation, this technology enables shared network services and management between Brocade ICX 7250, 7450, and 7750 switches distributed across the campus.

A leader in software defined networking (SDN), Brocade also extended OpenFlow 1.3 support to Brocade ICX 7450 and 7750 switches to enable SDN solutions in LAN architectures. Combined with the Brocade Vyatta® Controller, these switches give customers a way to begin realizing the possibilities of SDN automation.

“Today’s organizations require a high-performance, scalable campus LAN infrastructure to address the proliferation of mobile devices, rich media, and insatiable user expectations,” said Gary Denman, senior director Australia and New Zealand at Brocade. “In addition, customers are seeking networking solutions that will help to increase IT agility and lower operating expenses through automation and management consolidation.”

The design of the Brocade ICX family allows campus networks to evolve rapidly to support the move of services to the cloud – they need a network that is adaptable and flexible.

“The Brocade ICX network switches gave us the ability to scale both bandwidth and features during a period of extremely rapid growth, while maintaining a relatively similar administrative user experience and management tool set, which is key to keeping operational costs as low as possible,” said Ryan Crouch, chief technology officer and director at APEXnetworks.

Brocade directly addresses these issues with its new campus switches and SDN enhancements. The complete family of hardware and software solutions is designed for flexible scalability, simplified management, and open standards-based interoperability in multivendor best-in-class networks.

Product and Technology Details

  • The Brocade ICX 7250 delivers 50 percent greater stacking density than comparable switches, consolidating up to 576 1 GbE ports into a virtual chassis and single management touch point. To ensure easily scalable network services as user applications evolve, full Layer 3 services are available for the Brocade ICX 7250 to reduce CapEx and protect existing investments
  • The centrally managed Switch Port Extender will enable the Brocade ICX 7250 and 7450 switches to inherit advanced Brocade ICX 7750 features and capabilities, simplifying management to greatly reduce OpEx.
  • OpenFlow 1.3 is universally supported in Brocade ICX switches whether they are deployed individually, in mixed stacks, or in distributed stacks—offering SDN implementation flexibility across wiring closets.
  • The Brocade ICX switch family is certified with the OpenDaylight-based Brocade Vyatta Controller and will support other OpenDaylight-compliant controllers.
  • Supporting Quotes

“As a Brocade Elite Partner, ASI Solutions has successfully enabled many campus networks to evolve with the Brocade HyperEdge Architecture mixed stacking technology. The Brocade switching solutions simplify, automate and future proof campus networks,” said Jorge Ferreira, Brocade Product Manager, ASI Solutions. “The new Switch Port Extender for the ICX7000 switch family is another key component of the Brocade vision for scalability on multiple dimensions and we have confidence that Australian campus network owners will agree.”

 “A recent IDC survey of enterprise networking professionals showed that network provisioning and operational agility was the most cited primary motivation for either considering or implementing SDN solutions in both the datacenter and the campus. Brocade's end-to-end delivery of software networking stack elements including OpenFlow 1.3 Hybrid Port Mode support on its ICX campus LAN portfolio demonstrates the growing traction of SDN across the network." – Nolan Greene, research analyst, Network Infrastructure, IDC.

Pricing and Availability

  • General availability for the Brocade ICX 7250 begins this month with a list price starting at US$2,000.   
  • The initial release of Switch Port Extender is planned for late 2015 and will support Brocade ICX 7750 and 7450 mixed domains. Future releases will include support for all Brocade ICX7250, 7450 and 7750 switches.
  • The Brocade ICX 7450 and 7750 OpenFlow 1.3 implementations are available this month and will support standalone mode initially, with full stacking support to follow in a future software release.    

About Brocade

Brocade (NASDAQ: BRCD) networking solutions help the world's leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. (www.brocade.com)

© 2015 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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