Brocade Communications Systems Inc. Monday unveiled new hardware and software in its SilkWorm line of Fibre Channel switches for storage area networks (SANs).
The vendor introduced the SilkWorm 4100, a 4 gigabit-per-second for midrange storage applications in branch offices or departments of larger enterprises. The new switch comes in 16-, 24- and 32-port configurations and Brocade said the ports are all auto-sensing for data link speeds of 1, 2 or 4 Gbits per second.
Using a new Brocade-designed ASIC, the SilkWorm 4100 supports an aggregate bandwidth of 256 Gbits per second in the 32-port configuration. The new ASIC also supports trunking for up to eight ports per trunk group and full-duplex trunk data rates as high as 32 Gbits per second between switches. Brocade also said that the 4-gigabit technology helps reduce the cost of SAN infrastructure by supporting twice the number of servers on each port as more widely deployed 2-gigabit switches.
"They're really working to make things simpler, which is a really big issue-customers need simplification," said Randy Kerns, senior partner with the Evaluator Group, Greenwood Village, Colo. "The big deal about 4-Gbit [Fibre Channel] is that if drive manufacturers switch over, it will drive down the cost of components. So the transition to 4-Gbit is not so much a performance issue as it is a matter of getting new, least-cost solutions.
Looking at the broader market, new 4-Gbit Fibre Channel equipment is expected to begin permeating storage networks by mid-2005; prices in general are expected to be under $500 port.
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