The step is a key part of Brocade’s efforts to prevent the defection of former McData customers to Cisco Systems, following Brocade’s purchase of McData early this year.
The interoperability has been achieved by a rework to the operating system that powers the 48000, and allows the device to work with full support for all functions in either Brocade or McData-powered existing networks, said Brocade senior product manager Bill Dunmire.
Brocade made the same move for its 5000 switch last year. As for the 5000, the update to the 64000 is either-or, meaning that the box can work in either McData or Brocade networks natively, but not both simultaneously.
Although Brocade and McData switches and directors both support Fibre Channel standards, like all FC SAN gear they sport extra networking functions that are important to customers, but are not covered by any standards.
That means that until Brocade’s interoperability work, a Brocade device could only be inserted into a McData network – or for that matter into a Cisco or QLogic network – by disabling those extra functions and switching the switches or directors to the fully standardized but relatively dumb interoperability mode.
