Brocade Unveils Storage Configurations Aimed At Oracle Deployments

The enhancements include improved capabilities in Brocade host bus adapters (HBAs) for supporting the Oracle VM virtualization platform in conjunction with NetApp, as well as specific storage solutions in conjunction with Dell, NetApp, and Sun for improving the performance of Oracle applications.

The move is in response to customers who want to simplify their IT environments, said Ben Taft, director of strategic alliances at Brocade.

"Customers are asking vendors to get together to collaborate in order to simplify deployment and reduce risk," Taft said. "Oracle has gone out and heard customers say, 'Make it simpler.'"

Brocade is extending Oracle VM virtualization platform, including the Oracle VM Orchestration tools, with a new Oracle VM Validated Configuration consisting of Brocade 300 switches, Brocade HBAs, and NetApp's FAS3100 series storage appliances.

Patric Chang, business development manager for strategic alliances at Brocade, said the goal is to help customers set specific priorities for backup processes in virtual environments.

"We've integrated our management software to look at network traffic to set the priorities at the virtual machine level," Chang said. "The whole idea of virtualization is to share storage."

While Brocade is introducing the validated configuration for NetApp, there's no reason it can't be used with other storage vendors as well, Chang said.

Brocade is also including Hewlett-Packard products in other validated configurations for Oracle VM environments.

Oracle released its Oracle VM virtualization platform two years ago, and is trying to make it the defacto virtualization technology for its applications.

Oracle in May acquired Virtual Iron, a small developer of virtualization technology, in order to add a management component to its Oracle VM.

On the application side, Brocade introduced a number of storage solution configurations aimed at improving the performance of Oracle database and data warehousing deployments, Chang said.

For optimizing enterprise Oracle OLTP (online transaction processing), Brocade introduced pre-tested configurations including Brocade 5300 SAN switches, Brocade HBAs, and EMC Symmetrix V-Max storage arrays with flash drives.

Brocade also introduced pre-tested configurations for midsized enterprise and department OLTP solutions including Brocade 5100 SAN switches, Brocade HBAs, and EMC Clariion CX4 with flash drives.

For Oracle optimized data warehouse solutions, Brocade introduce configurations including Brocade 5100 and 5300 switches and EMC's Clariion CX4 and Symmetrix V-Max.

For smaller data warehouse deployments, Brocade introduced configurations including Brocade 300, 5100, and 5300 switches or Brocade DCX backbone switches together with Sun Fire servers or Sun SPARC servers and Sun Storage systems.