Huawei and Brocade jointly release high-performance active-active storage network solution

[Shanghai, China, September 21, 2017] At HUAWEI CONNECT 2017, Huawei and Brocade jointly released a high-performance active-active storage network solution powered by OceanStor Dorado V3 AFAs coupled with Brocade Gen-6 Fibre Channel and SX6 Disaster Recovery (DR) switch modules. The solution, combining the expertise of two industry leaders, provides customers with enhanced performance, reliability, and security. The new storage network solution can thus reduce query time by as much as 71%.

Huawei and Brocade Jointly Released a High-Performance Active-Active Storage Network Solution at Huawei Connect

As Big Data analysis and super-charged database applications become part of the norm in enterprise profiles, building real-time database analysis and rapid retrieval capabilities into the layout are critical to enterprises wanting to improve their decision-making abilities. Accelerating storage and network resources before bottlenecks appear in the storage and network is critical to users being able to quickly obtain analysis reports. Another key consideration for administrators at enterprise data centers is implementing a reliable offsite or intra-city DR scheme for critical data.

The jointly released high-performance active-active storage network solution runs on Huawei OceanStor Dorado V3 AFAs designed for a solid state disk (SSD). Latency on systems is controlled to 0.5 ms. Incorporating Brocade Gen-6 fiber switches with new-generation 32G ASIC processing chips delivers high bandwidth and low latency to accelerate data analysis for enterprises of all types.

In addition, OceanStor Dorado V3 AFAs have a rich store of available value-added features, including a gateway-free HyperMetro which is able to achieve seamless switchover within seconds. Service continuity is further ensured with fewer possible points of failure in the gateway-free design. Brocade SX6 DR switch modules are able to support 32G FC, 10GE, and 40GE in the protocol interface and adopt FCIP and IPEX for higher performance, reliability, and scalability while enabling a greater degree of flexibility in networking.

OceanStor Dorado V3 AFAs running HyperMetro and remote replication services bring added benefits to the layout with tolerance of short-term link interruption, jitter, and disconnections in addition to restoring links without impact to ongoing services, all of which are transparent to the disk copy process. Remote recovery is supported at distances of up to 10,000 km.

Pang Xin, Vice President of Huawei IT Storage Product Line, said,

” More and more customers are expecting performance and higher reliability with lowered latency in their all-flash purchases. Huawei's collaboration with Brocade enables all new levels of performance, reliability, and security for mission-critical services. Huawei continues to up long-term investments and band with more partners to continuously strengthen its portfolio in storage, Big Data analysis systems, and storage network technologies to provide an enhanced user experience.”

Daniel Cai, OEM Director for Brocade China, said,

“Legacy networks will bottleneck flash storage, minimizing the performance and economic benefits of this game-changing technology. Brocade’s Gen 6 Fibre Channel solutions unleash the full value of today’s flash technology and enable tomorrow’s next-generation flash storage based on Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe). NVMe will be the next disruptive storage technology in the data center and customers will be able to seamlessly integrate NVMe over fabrics with Brocade Gen 6 Fibre Channel. As such, Brocade and Huawei have been actively collaborating on High Performance and the Active-Active joint solution.

“When integrated with Huawei’s OceanStor Dorado V3 storage systems, it accelerated application workloads and reduced processing time tremendously. Brocade and Huawei will continue to strengthen the partnership in storage networking to provide customers with reliable, robust and smart solutions,” continued Daniel Cai.

HUAWEI CONNECT 2017, Huawei's flagship event for the global ICT industry, was held at the Shanghai New International Exhibition Centre from September 5-7. The theme was ‘Grow with the Cloud’. Huawei explored how to realize new growth through digital transformation together with its customers and partners at this global platform for open collaboration.