Brocade Communications Systems, a leading provider of storage area networking (SAN) infrastructure, and BMC Software have announced a partnership to deliver enhanced storage resource management solutions for Brocade-based SANs. In conjunction with its recently announced Application-Centric Storage Management approach, BMC is developing a Patrol Knowledge Module (KM) for Brocade SANs. The KM is an interface to BMC storage resource and network management products.
Brocade is represented in South Africa by MGX and BMC by Master Distributor CCH Enterprise Solutions. The agreement extends CCH Enterprise Solutions` storage strategy and its ability to provide comprehensive storage solutions to its clients.
Through this partnership, SAN customers will be able to use BMC management offerings to manage Brocade-based heterogeneous SANs. Management capabilities include realtime "application-level views" of all devices in a SAN through dynamic discovery, application-level management of storage devices to optimise resource utilisation, and integration of SAN events into the BMC management infrastructure. Brocade-enabled BMC solutions are expected to be generally available from BMC by first quarter 2001.
"As multi-vendor SANs continue to expand in size and complexity, simplifying SAN management is critical. This partnership will allow SAN customers to improve their return on SAN investment and reduce total cost of ownership of their storage environments," says Reg Swart, BMC operations and product manager at CCH Enterprise Solutions.
Brocade Fibre Channel Fabric switches provide a networking foundation for SANs. Using Brocade SilkWorm switches, customers can connect servers with storage devices through a SAN, creating a reliable and scalable environment for storage applications.
Brocade switches are based on the Brocade Fabric operating system (OS), an intelligent distributed operating system for Brocade-based SANs. The Fabric OS provides a platform for SAN-designed applications and offers advanced features for proactive SAN management and monitoring, enabling applications dynamically to discover physical components in a SAN and monitor SAN fabric resources.
Brocade makes the value-added features of the Fabric OS available to Fabric Access partners through Fabric Access, which is the application programming interface (API) to Fabric OS.
To offer its customers the advanced capabilities of the Brocade infrastructure, BMC has become a Brocade Fabric Access partner, which provides the company and its customers with the functionality and benefits of the Brocade Fabric OS. BMC`s Application-Centric Storage Management solutions provide a logical view of physical storage devices, mapping the application to the storage device, and then optimising the application`s performance on the storage device. BMC solutions proactively manage and monitor complex IT environments, enabling around-the-clock availability of applications.
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