Brocade has released its File Area Network (FAN) and Storage Area Network (SAN) solution portfolios and now wants to add a little extra tender loving care to the mix.
The San Jose, Calif.-based storage vendor said its FAN solutions allow for more efficient management of unstructured file-based data across any given enterprise network. Through the use of Brocade’s StorageX solution, a part of FAN’s portfolio, businesses have greater control over data flow within their infrastructures, which ultimately helps reduce administrative costs, said Brocade.
In addition to the FAN portfolio, Brocade’s SAN solutions work to improve security, scalability, interoperability and virtualization, while at the same time aids in managing data centres, the vendor claims.
Mike Schmitt, director of product marketing at Brocade, said recent enhancements to Brocade’s portfolio help create better efficiencies within enterprise data centres and branch offices.
“We’re a data-centric company,” Schmitt said. “We put together a [FAN] architecture for customers to take their existing environments and allow them to have secure and controlled access to their data whenever they wanted it.”
With FAN, Brocade also leveraged virtualization technology to help support its users and storage data.
“In our environment, we can support as many users as there are,” Schmitt said. “What virtualization does, should I want to move any data as an administrator, is it updates itself as well as [gives users] direct access to it.”
Also included in the FAN portfolio is StorageX, an application suite that aggregates file data and allows administrators to keep track of where everything is.
Vasu Daggupaty, research analyst for storage solutions at IDC Canada, said there is an increasing demand in the market for FAN solutions.
“(Users) want to drive efficiencies out of their existing data and we’re seeing a lot of interest (in) how vendors and developers can alleviate management stress when managing assets,” said Daggupaty.
With the two new portfolios that have recently rolled out, Brocade’s Schmitt admits there have been enquiries from both partners and end-users communities about increasing Brocade’s presence in the marketplace.
“What we’re being told is there’s some tender loving care needed with our higher level FAN infrastructures,” Schmitt said. “They want more of a personalized touch so we’re beefing up our people and the infrastructure that we use for our channel partners.”
Schmitt said Brocade supports its partners in many ways, through the use of educational and training programs, sales promotions and collateral as well as through certification programs and incentive and awards programs.
“The success [of these networking solutions] will be determined by the method in which Brocade educates and ensures partners have all the resources they need,” Daggupaty said.
When asked about Brocade’s strategy to gain an added edge in the Canadian marketplace, Schmitt said it will be through Brocade’s continued partner support.
“Our strategy is with our direct sales focus,” Schmitt said. “We support our partners directly and we have a team that’s directly focused with training our partners in the Canadian market.”
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