fwiw
-Institutional %
biz.yahoo.com
dated but imo important
biz.yahoo.com
-Brocade and IBM Team to Deliver Standards-Based Management Solutions for Storage Networks
Monday October 7, 8:22 am ET
IBM Tivoli Solutions with Enhanced Management Capabilities for the Brocade Intelligent SAN Platform Provide Customers Migration Path to Standards
SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade®) (Nasdaq: BRCD - News), a leading provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), announced today that it has teamed with IBM to deliver standards-based SAN management solutions. IBM Tivoli Storage Area Network Manager, announced today by IBM, leverages Brocade Fabric Access API 2.0 -- the second generation of the Application Programming Interface (API) to the Brocade Fabric Operating System (Fabric OS) -- to harness the intelligence of the Brocade SAN infrastructure. Tivoli Storage Area Network Manager uses the Brocade API for discovery of active zone configurations in a Brocade fabric to show separate views for each discovered zone and to show all devices in a zone.
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The Brocade Fabric Access API will be compliant with the Common Information Model (CIM) by the first half of 2003, setting the stage for further convergence of SAN management strategies by Brocade and IBM based on CIM, the Bluefin specification, and WBEM. CIM, which is part of the WBEM initiative, is the standard language and methodology for describing management information. With CIM, storage infrastructure components will have a standard interface which software, at all levels, can discover and use to manage those components. This reduces the amount of specialized code within the management application and allows resources within the software company to focus on higher-level functionality. Customers benefit from the accelerated development of SAN management applications, facilitated by standards like CIM, WBEM, and Bluefin, which introduces new technology for security, locking, and discovery for SAN management.
"Because IBM Tivoli Storage Area Network Manager is optimized to manage Brocade fabrics, it helps increase operational efficiency and storage network security. We have standardized on IBM because it provides a robust, feature- rich platform for our storage applications and because their management software allows us to manage the advanced capabilities of our Brocade-based IBM SAN fabric," said Paola Paladini, Storage MultiPlatform Technology, Global Value Services.
Tivoli Software allows customers to achieve faster and improved Return On Investment (ROI) through solutions that provide higher applications availability, increased resource efficiency, and reduced storage management cost in today's high-growth storage environments. In being developed to the Fabric Access API, Tivoli Storage Area Network Manager is optimized to manage the Brocade installed base of over 1.8 million SAN ports.
This agreement expands the existing relationship between the two companies in which Brocade is a certified Ready for Tivoli(TM) partner, which helps ensure that Brocade products are designed, tested, and validated to be interoperable with Tivoli Software technology management solutions. In addition, IBM sells and supports the entire family of 2 Gigabit per second Brocade SAN infrastructure, including the SilkWorm® 12000 Core Fabric Switch, the SilkWorm 3800 Enterprise Fabric Switch, and the SilkWorm 3200 Entry Fabric Switch. Brocade also serves as the storage networking foundation for IBM open SAN solutions designed for small- and mid-market SAN customers in Europe.
"To help organizations better manage their heterogeneous SANs, the storage networking industry is moving to standards-based development schema like CIM and Bluefin," said Jose Iglesias, Director, Tivoli Storage, IBM Software Group. "IBM considers these standards important and plays a key role in helping develop and encourage their adoption. We are pleased to work with Brocade because of its commitment to the CIM standard and to helping provide enterprises with a comprehensive way of managing hardware in heterogeneous networked storage environments."
"Through our open API, Brocade has helped simplify the delivery of feature-rich data management, movement, and administration applications from third party application and technology partners that can optimize their applications to manage Brocade," said Jeffrey Brooks, Brocade Chief Marketing Officer. "Brocade is a major contributor to both CIM and Bluefin and authored Fabric and Zoning portions of CIM to facilitate the promotion of industry standards to increase manageability of heterogeneous SAN environments."
About the Brocade Fabric Access Program
Brocade unlocks the intelligence in the Brocade fabric and makes it available to partners through the Fabric Access API. Brocade fabric switches are based on the Brocade Fabric Operating System (Fabric OS), which is an intelligent, distributed operating system for Brocade fabrics. The Brocade Fabric OS provides a feature-rich platform for SAN-designed applications and offers advanced features for proactive SAN management and monitoring, enabling applications to dynamically discover physical components in a SAN and monitor fabric resources. Using the Fabric Access API, partners can use the information proactively delivered by the Fabric OS to inform and empower their management applications. The Fabric Access API is designed to conform to the emerging Common Information Model (CIM) standard. For more information, visit brocade.com .
About Tivoli Software from IBM
Tivoli software from IBM enables an IT organization to reduce the total cost of ownership and improve service levels of the IT infrastructure. Tivoli systems management software helps traditional enterprises and e-businesses worldwide manage security, storage, performance and availability, and configuration and operations. Backed by world-class IBM services, support and research, IBM software is one of four key IBM Software Group brands-DB2, Lotus, Tivoli and WebSphere. For more information, visit www.tivoli.com. |
