WHITE PAPER

DATA CENTER Building a Reliable Foundation for

Expanded Data Center Virtualization

IT organizations can leverage the Brocade DCF architecture

and a wide range of strategic solutions and services to
achieve their growing virtualization objectives.
 In an effort to meet the growth challenges associated with global
expansion and distributed business environments, IT organizations
are embracing server and storage virtualization to support business
strategies that are more fluid, more cost-effective, and better able
to support a dynamic workforce. As they do so, however, many
organizations are finding that a more holistic data center virtualization
strategy is necessary to meet the management, scalability, and
reliability issues related to virtualization deployments.
The Brocade® Data Center Fabric (DCF) architecture provides a
strategic foundation for transforming today’s IT infrastructures into
next-generation, virtualization-enabled data centers. This architecture
allows organizations to manage a growing and dynamic IT environment
from the perspective of the application stack—leveraging built-in fabric
intelligence and a scalable, open architecture to support reliable,
flexible, and cost-efficient data access and delivery.
This white paper includes:
• Virtualization trends and the issues IT organizations face
• A holistic Brocade data center virtualization strategy
• The specific Brocade products, solutions, and services that
enable data center virtualization

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CHALLENGES FACING TODAY’S IT ORGANIZATIONS
Today business environments are more global, more local, and more complex than ever
before. This new global competition requires business strategies that are more fluid,
transparent, and dynamic as the supply chain becomes more flexible and regional variations
in products and processes are required to gain a competitive advantage (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.
Server consolidation 81% The key drivers of virtualization investments
from a CIO Magazine survey of 300 CIOs,
Disaster recovery and backup 63%
Source: CIO Magazine, January 2008
Better provisioning of computer resources 55%

More flexibility for the business 53%

Competitive advantage 13%

Source: CIO Magazine, January 2008

Given this new reality, organizations no longer see data centers as simply repositories of
corporate data. Instead, they are increasingly turning their data centers into strategic assets
in order to keep up with the unprecedented growth of digital data and the pressure to
improve infrastructure performance, application availability, and scalability. In the past, users
had one device to access applications, which sat on a dedicated server and leveraged data
stored on the same storage devices throughout its lifecycle. In turn, the connections between
subsystems remained static—a “wire once” data center fabric architecture. However, with
virtualization and the increased mobility of applications, data, and users, organizations are
discovering that their growing IT infrastructures need to be managed from the perspective of
the application—rather than from the device.

In addition to growth and complexity, organizations are attempting to meet growing capacity
and performance requirements from virtual infrastructures. They require a flexible, open IT
infrastructure that can grow to meet business needs at a reasonable price point, calling for a
deliberate and intelligent growth plan that accounts for both long-term and short-term needs.

Simplifying management through resource consolidation is another common goal, helping to

reduce the physical number of devices and network infrastructure that need to be monitored
and maintained. This consolidation in turn can lower power usage, mitigating the data center
contribution to climate change while lowering monthly electricity bills. Finally, organizations
need a data center infrastructure in place that is manageable, scalable, and reliable,
giving the organization the flexibility it needs to seamlessly allocate, monitor, and manage
resources.

To address these challenges, organizations are making strategic, future-looking, and low-risk
infrastructure investments that provide a fast Return On Investment (ROI) and contribute to
a flexible and dynamic business model. With this mandate to reduce risk and complexity,
organizations need infrastructure components that are more tightly integrated under a
common management framework. Only then will organizations begin to leverage a powerful
and dynamic data center infrastructure as a strategic advantage.

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 VIRTUALIZATION TODAY
Virtualization solutions are present throughout the data center, increasing mobility through
the data center fabric and changing the way organizations deliver applications to users.
Organizations can now build scalable, manageable, and reliable server and storage
environments that respond intelligently and quickly to changing market demands while
cutting capital expenditures and operational costs.

Today’s virtualization solutions consist of pools of flexible server and storage resources that
can be allocated dynamically to meet variable traffic loads and changing business needs.
While traditional IT management strategies focused on monitoring and managing hardware
components, virtualization allows organizations to concentrate on the application stack,
ensuring that users have access to the tools and information they need, when they need it.

Organizations are using server virtualization solutions to build on-demand compute

environments that can dynamically allocate server resources between business applications.
For example, a Wall Street firm now has the technology to allocate additional systems to the
company’s trading application during market hours and then repurpose those servers after
the bell rings to other applications—such as accounting, Web serving, and support functions.
Instead of purchasing multiple static systems to perform multiple jobs some of the time,
fewer servers are deployed and more fully optimized. While server virtualization provides
utilization and performance benefits, organizations can go one step further by extending
virtualization to the application access network and the application data fabric.

Server- and storage-centric solutions do not go far enough in enabling complete data center
resource allocation. They simply cannot provide a holistic solution to virtualize the network
and the fabrics that tie these environments together while extending adaptive networking
services to the rest of the data center. Because multiple workloads are now supported on
a single physical server, bandwidth throughout the data center fabric and I/O have much
more impact on application performance than previous static architectures. It is important
that these fabrics are as flexible and dynamic as the compute and storage environments
they support. Otherwise, performance problems can create bottlenecks that inhibit an
organization’s ability to quickly deliver applications and data to users at a low cost and at
constant availability.

In addition, it is usually expensive to rip and replace static infrastructure with more flexible
solutions. IT organizations have found that virtual environments can be inherently complex
and require extensive planning, configuration, and management to maintain aggressive
Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and ensure Quality of Service (QoS) levels. With IT staff
already overburdened with infrastructure management, organizations need better tools and
additional resources to enable a holistic data center virtualization solution.

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THE BROCADE VIRTUALIZATION STRATEGY: THE BROCADE DCF ARCHITECTURE
The Brocade Data Center Fabric (DCF) architecture provides a strategic foundation for
transforming today’s IT infrastructures into next-generation data centers with reduced costs,
increased flexibility, and minimized risk. This evolutionary strategy allows organizations
to leverage a variety of basic building blocks for implementing a holistic data center
virtualization solution that provides a true end-to-end strategy for deploying flexible, simple,
and cost-efficient infrastructure.

With more than a decade of experience and a wide breadth of data center solutions, Brocade
helps organizations utilize Brocade Adaptive Networking services across the data center
as part of a complete, holistic virtualization strategy. Brocade works with a broad range of
industry-leading storage, server, software, and networking vendors and is committed to
extensive compatibility testing that results in best-in-class virtualization solutions.

Through the strategic Brocade DCF architecture, Brocade provides the “enabling” layer for
data center virtualization—building the intelligence required in virtual environments directly
into the data center fabric. This intelligence includes multiprotocol connectivity as well as
fabric, application, and extension services. In addition, Brocade works with its partners
(through their management applications) to provide unified management across the data
center and beyond, giving IT organizations the visibility and control to efficiently deploy and
manage their virtual resources.

Figure 2.
The Brocade DCF architecture: a robust
Adaptive Networking • Fabric QoS
foundation with advanced services to
services • Application QoS enable data center virtualization.
• Traffic Management
• Fabric Dynamic Profiling
• Resource recovery

Brocade fabric • Virtual Fabrics

intelligence • Virtual Channels
• Congestion monitors
• Resource monitors
• Queue management
• Congestion prediction
Fabric services • FSPF
• Topology discovery
• Zoning
• Trunking
• Security

Fabric protocols • FCP

• SAN routing
• FCIP
• iSCSI
• FCoE
Physical Connectivity
• Backbones
• Directors
• Switches
• Blade server switches
• SAN routers
• FICON extension
• Open systems extension
• HBAs

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UNIQUE ADVANTAGES OF
THE BROCADE DATA CENTER
FABRIC ARCHITECTURE
• Is an application- and data-centric
(versus network-centric) foundation,
delivering the highest levels of
performance, scalability, and reliability
• Simplifies data center connectivity
and reduces costs by collapsing
storage networking and server-
to-server clustering into a single,
converged infrastructure
• Adapts to the dynamics of
virtualized servers and storage
while accommodating expanding
application workloads
• Provides “plug-in” services that
leverage intelligence in the fabric
and offload server resources to
increase protection, provide data
mobility, virtualize storage, and
enhance security
• Supports a common management
framework utilizing best-in-class
Brocade and third-party tools across
block, file, and other data types
• Protects and extends existing IT
investments with interoperability for
non-disruptive growth and expansion
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In particular, the Brocade DCF architecture leverages built-in fabric intelligence and policy-
driven automation to support existing server and storage virtualization deployments,
dynamically meeting the demands of traffic load across the network (see Figure 2). The
architecture supports multiple applications, protocols, and hardware brands, giving
organizations the ability to automatically—or dynamically—interchange hardware and
infrastructure depending on SLAs and current business needs. Organizations can take
advantage of heterogeneous pools of IT resources allocated on demand to meet changing
traffic scalability loads.
The Brocade DCF architecture also enables central management capabilities throughout the
data center, increasing agility while lowering capital expenditures and reducing operational
costs. For instance, organizations can access a central management console to plan, deploy,
monitor, and manage virtualization solutions and IT resource pools.
Data Center Connectivity
The Brocade DCX consolidates storage resources into a single pool that can be dynamically
allocated, monitored, and managed from a central management console. This approach
provides a snapshot of available resources and how they relate to each other. Armed with
this critical information and a central management framework, organizations can make fast
and accurate decisions based on real-time monitoring and powerful analytics—ensuring that
virtualization can be seamlessly implemented and managed from the perspective of the
application stack as an end-to-end strategy across the data center.
The Brocade DCX also accommodates a broad range of automation capabilities across the
data center fabric, allowing organizations to create advanced policies to support a variety
of strategic virtualization initiatives. This simplifies planning, deploying, monitoring, and
maintaining a dynamic data center fabric and ensures the visibility and manageability
required in a holistic data center virtualization strategy.
Brocade SAN backbones, directors, and switches provide a reliable foundation for connecting
virtual servers and storage devices in multiprotocol environments; they are the building
blocks for high-performance, high-reliability data center networks. The solutions optimize
storage networking infrastructure to address the widest range of requirements in virtualized
environments, resulting in the flexibility, scalability, and performance to deploy and manage a
holistic virtualized data center.
Brocade data center connectivity solutions offer:
• Increased network flexibility and utilization of shared resources for virtualized networks
• Greater flexibility with advanced partitioning and extension technologies
• Adaptive Networking services
• Industry-leading power and cooling efficiency for reduced operational expenses
The resulting high-speed, robust storage networks enable organizations to access and
share virtual data in a high-performance, manageable, and scalable manner. Organizations
can deploy 1, 2, 4, and 8 Gbit/sec Fibre Channel SAN environments with highly scalable
core-to-edge configurations optimized for virtual networks.
The Brocade solutions provide built-in investment protection as key elements of a future-built,
flexible, scalable, and multiprotocol framework. Organizations can utilize their existing
equipment and processes and choose how and when to upgrade their fabrics to support
virtualization in the most efficient manner.

Server Connectivity
Virtual environments require powerful mobility throughout the data center fabric—application
performance depending much more on bandwidth and I/O than static network architectures.
Brocade server connectivity solutions enable faster and more efficient I/O streams, policy-
based QoS, and fabric-based services to support seamless data migration, protection, and
encryption. As a result, they enable applications to “move” across virtual environments and
the storage fabric without interrupting data access or impacting users.

Brocade Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) lay the foundation for extending fabric intelligence to
servers and through the network to virtual machines, applications, and services—enabling
end-to-end storage network management. This approach provides tighter integration across
the enterprise, including both physical and virtual infrastructure.

Brocade HBAs provide robust and powerful storage connectivity for virtual servers, helping
to ensure that flexibility does not come at the price of performance, reliability, or scalability.
They also provide up to 8 Gbit/sec performance along with greater data protection for
both physical and virtualized environments. The flexible Brocade architecture simplifies
management of virtual connections, giving organizations the ability to guarantee service
levels, monitor I/O history, and isolate traffic per virtual machine.

Brocade Access Gateway enhances server connectivity to shared storage, bringing a wide
variety of scalability, manageability, and cost advantages to virtual environments. The
solution enables the direct connection of servers to any shared storage fabric, enhancing
fabric scalability by eliminating the switch domain identify. The Brocade Access Gateway also
eliminates traditional heterogeneous switch-to-switch interoperability challenges by utilizing
N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) standards to present Fibre Channel server connections
as logical devices to the data center fabric. Virtual machines can connect quickly and
seamlessly to shared storage with minimal configuration.

Brocade supports new Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) protocols, giving organizations
the ability to consolidate multiple transport layers on a single physical interconnect. This new
transport layer will extend the reliability and fabric services of Fibre Channel to a broader
range of server environments, enabling more flexibility throughout the data center fabric and
reducing the cost and complexity of implementing a virtualized data center.

The high performance and flexibility provided by Brocade server connectivity help speed
the process of provisioning server, I/O, and bandwidth resources for dynamic virtualized
environments. This ability to quickly and seamlessly allocate resources is a key component
of a holistic data center virtualization strategy. Quickly reacting to changes in traffic load
requires the ability to rapidly identify available systems; load them with the appropriate
operating system, applications, and drivers; and then allocate storage resources. Brocade
server connectivity solutions help ensure that this traditionally complex and time-consuming
process is not an inhibitor to virtualization, but rather a strength to help streamline data
delivery and simplify management.

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 Storage Fabric Extension
Regardless of the type of network, Brocade extension solutions are designed to reliably
connect critical resources throughout the data center and across the enterprise. These
solutions include the Brocade 7500 Extension Switch, Brocade 7500E Extension Switch,
Brocade FR4-18i SAN Extension Blade (in the Brocade DCX Backbone or Brocade 48000
Director), Brocade USD-X, and Brocade Edge M3000 SAN Router. In virtualized environments,
storage fabric extension solutions can help ensure reliable data access—even as the
connections between servers and storage become increasingly fluid.

Brocade extension solutions provide robust connectivity between devices, creating the
framework for reliable resource pools that can be grouped as a single virtual asset or
allocated on demand as needs arise—regardless of where the resources are physically
deployed. Organizations can consolidate and share devices without the restrictions of merged
fabrics, even in multivendor environments.

This reliable extension of shared storage also enables a more efficient business continuity
and disaster recovery strategy—using virtualization as its foundation. Because resource pools
can be spread across geographies in multiple data centers, shared storage can act as both
an in-production resource—available to be allocated quickly and dynamically whenever and
wherever it is needed—and as disaster recovery infrastructure.

Central Management
As stated above, virtualization requires the careful management of the application stack
rather than hardware components to enable seamless mobility of applications and data
throughout the data center fabric. Brocade fabric management software centralizes the
management of large, multi-fabric or multi-site storage networks—improving visibility
throughout the data center fabric and the virtual connections between servers and storage.
With enterprise-class reliability and scalability—and advanced features such as proactive
monitoring and alert notification—Brocade management solutions help optimize storage
resources in virtual environments and maximize the performance of the data center fabric.

Brocade Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM™), Brocade Enterprise Fabric Connectivity
Manager (EFCM), and Brocade Fabric Manager provide the essential capabilities to manage
Brocade fabrics on a daily basis the framework for planning, deploying, monitoring, and
maintaining virtual environments. The management solutions also serve as the access point
to fabric intelligence and fabric services for Brocade virtualization management platform
partners including VMware, Microsoft, and IBM. It helps mitigate complexity and streamline

Figure 3. High Performance

The data center of the future featuring a CORE DATA
CENTER
unified fabric with advanced services.
Low Cost
iSCSI SAN

Next-generation 10 GbE
CEE
FCoE

Disaster
Recovery Site Fibre Channel
Storage I/O

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administrative tasks through automated event management, security policy management,
historical analysis, and group event logging. Simplified management throughout the fabric
makes it easier to provision storage resources to support server virtualization (see Figure 3).

Brocade management software solutions work in tandem with Brocade data center backbone,
director, switch, and extension solutions so organizations can dynamically manage and
implement a holistic data center virtualization strategy.

File Management
As employees, partners, and customers become increasingly dispersed, files that need to
be stored and protected become distributed as well. The Brocade DCF architecture extends
beyond the borders of the corporate data center and block-based SAN fabrics to include
remote offices and file storage. Brocade file management solutions enable data centers to
provide centralized, policy-driven management of files residing at all points of the enterprise,
allowing file access to be virtualized and viewed in a manner similar to World-Wide Web
(WWW) pages through a technology known as a global (single) namespace.

At the same time, Brocade file management solutions allow organizations to non-disruptively
manage files located in remote offices and data centers. Organizations can transparently
migrate files from remote offices and consolidate them in a central data center where they
can be stored, archived, and backed up more reliably and efficiently. These files can then be
migrated seamlessly in the background without disrupting user access.

For example, Brocade StorageX® creates a global namespace as a logical view of files,
enabling users to access distributed files without knowing—or caring—where they are
stored. Organizations can expand, move, rebalance, and reconfigure file storage in relation
to the virtual environment without affecting how users view and access files. This logical
management system for distributed files requires far less administrative effort and time,
enabling organizations to manage files on heterogeneous, geographically distributed storage
devices through a single console.

In addition, Brocade File Management Engine (FME) enables the seamless migration of files
across physical distances without disrupting availability. This allows organizations to schedule
regular maintenance of file servers during business hours, helping eliminate the need to
perform these tasks during nights and weekends.

Together, Brocade file management solutions provide the transparency necessary to optimize
virtual environments based on their ability to

• Automate non-disruptive migration of file shares and directories

• Classify and place individual files on multiple storage tiers
• Support automated, policy-based tasks
• Simulate and validate policies prior to actual execution

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 Professional Services
Brocade provides a wide range of assessment, design, and implementation services for
virtualized environments, helping organizations implement a holistic data center virtualization
strategy. For example, Brocade offers a VMware Server Virtualization Solution Service, which
helps organizations virtualize any environment from the corporate data center to branch
offices by leveraging shared storage resources. Brocade Professional Services consultants
have performed thousands of VMware engagements for Fortune 1000 customers,
highlighting the importance of shared storage in a holistic data center virtualization strategy.

Brocade also provides data protection, security, and migration services that enable a
comprehensive virtualization strategy. As part of these services, Brocade consultants work
with IT organizations to leverage high-performance shared storage for greater manageability,
flexibility, and availability for virtualized environments. They also help to ensure that this
heterogeneous pool of storage resources is always available—even to the most resource-
intensive virtual applications. As a result, Brocade virtualization services help organizations
optimize their virtual environments to generate tangible cost savings and ROI.

Brocade provides the following virtualization services:

• Server Virtualization Assessment Services

• VMware Infrastructure HealthCheck
• DCF Assessment Services
• Data Center Virtualization Design Services
• Server Implementation Services
• DCF Implementation Services
• Data Center Virtualization Transformation Services

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CONCLUSION
Many organizations are embracing server and storage virtualization solutions in an effort
to cost-effectively connect users to applications and data, consolidate infrastructure, and
enable business strategies that are more fluid, transparent, and dynamic. However, to gain
the most value, organizations need to go one step further and implement a holistic data
center virtualization strategy that extends the benefits of dynamic pools of IT resources to the
data center fabric. Only then will they be able to leverage a powerful and dynamic data center
infrastructure as a strategic advantage in an increasingly diverse and distributed business
environment.

Leveraging a wide range of industry-leading Brocade solutions and services, these

organizations can take a holistic approach to virtualization, implementing a powerful
management strategy that focuses on the application stack rather than on hardware
components. From data center and server connectivity to central management software and
file management, Brocade solutions and services provide organizations with a framework
in which to fully extend the consolidation, cost, and performance benefits of virtual
infrastructures throughout the data center fabric.

To learn more, visit www.brocade.com.

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