The New Partnership Aims to Meet Growing Demand in the Data Center and Virtualization Market in China While Helping Both Companies Gain Market Share
Brocade today announced a new OEM partnership with Dawning 
Information Industry Co Ltd (“Sugon”), one of the leading high-performance computing vendors formed under the purview of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The partnership is focused on incorporating Brocade® VCS® Fabric technology with Sugon’s data center solutions, specifically for the Chinese market. The partnership aims to address the growing demand for software networking solutions in China while helping both companies gain market share.
Sugon will integrate Brocade VDX® 6740 Switches, featuring VCS Fabric technology, with its flagship blade server product line – TC6600, as a 10/40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE)/16 Gbps Fibre Channel converged network switch module. The embedded switch module in the TC6600 will be named VDX 2741, and is capable of supporting 10 and 40 GbE requirements for cloud computing, Big Data analysis, and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), as well as supporting 16 Gbps Fibre Channel requirements for the deployment of high-performance data center networking solutions.
To build data center networks with resiliency, efficiency, and simplicity, the VDX 2741 embedded Ethernet fabric switch is a critical component of the Sugon TC6600 blade system in building a radically simplified data center network. Designed specifically for highly virtualized environments, Brocade VCS Fabric technology accelerates application deployment and enables faster Virtual Machine (VM) migrations through zero-touch VM discovery, VM mobility, and VM port configuration migration. Using VCS fabrics, Sugon TC6600 customers can manage dozens of switches as a single logical device, dramatically reducing operational costs. They can also save installation time as new switches provision themselves when they are connected to the fabric.
Sugon customers in China will benefit from deploying the integrated solutions that enable innovation-centric, software-enabled networking, providing the agility to scale their infrastructure up, down, and across to support today’s demanding compute models. In particular, the partnership will help customers in the banking and finance, telecommunications and service provider, education, and public sectors, all of whom need to deliver capacity and resources that scale with flexible and open network infrastructures.
“Our new partnership with Sugon will empower customers in China to build programmable networks easily, and allow them to innovate more rapidly at a lower cost and in the most accessible manner,” said Eric Yu, vice president for Greater China, Brocade. “Enterprises and service providers in China can take advantage of both Brocade’s strong heritage in Ethernet fabric and software networking, as well as Sugon’s large-scale deployment experience in China, to create a fundamentally different network based on the New IP. As a result, they will be prepared to meet today’s increasing demands created by cloud, social, mobile, and Big Data.”
According to IDC, China’s IT spending is expected to reach $256 BILLION BY 2018, which is a nearly 20 percent increase over 2014, with 10 percent of the total IT spending to be directly related to smart city projects.
“Sugon and Brocade both share a strong common vision that open networking technology is the right approach to give our customers the flexibility and choice for their IT investments,” said Dr. Sha Chaoqun, vice president, Sugon. “Brocade’s pioneering effort in developing a technology roadmap of open, software-driven networking solutions based on the New IP was another crucial factor in cementing this partnership, which we believe will pave the way for future collaborations as we help our customers innovate and transition their networks on their terms and timeline.”
The VDX 2741 embedded switch will come equipped with up to 44 10 GbE ports and 4 40 GbE ports (28×10 GbE internal ports, 16×10 GbE SFP+ ports, and 4×40 GbE QSFP ports external) in a 1U form factor. Through the use of a breakout cable, each 40 GbE QSFP port can be split into four 10 GbE ports.
