Rushes, a unit Deluxe Entertainment Services, has deployed a Brocade data centre networking application based on Ethernet fabric technology to link seven data centres located across five buildings in the Soho area of London.
Brocade said its VCS Fabric technology and VDX 6720 Data Center Switches are the foundation blocks for Ethernet fabrics, which are designed to improve network utilisation, maximise application availability, increase scalability and simplify network architectures in virtualised data centres.
The new Ethernet fabric deployment expands the post-production and special effects company’s network capacity by providing 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) performance, elasticity and resilience.
Rushes senior systems administrator Jez Tucker said having a distributed data centre environment, if the company had deployed traditional top-of-rack switches it would have created a huge mesh network resulting in vastly increased management overhead.
"In contrast, installing Brocade VDX switches in each computer room to create an Ethernet fabric is far simpler," Tucker said.
"Essentially VDX with VCS technology allows you to deploy a geographically distributed chassis switch, with each VDX being a blade in that chassis — all managed as one switch."
Rushes has also centralised file management by implementing an IBM General Parallel File System (GPFS) SAN throughout the business.
The new VCS Fabric technology-based architecture is providing a stable, high-performing, low-latency infrastructure that adapts to Rushes’ evolving business, said Brocade.
