Brocade 340 BR-340-0008 Datenbogen

PAY-AS-YOU-GROW SCALABILITY

The Brocade 300 integrates innovative
hardware and software features that make
it easy to deploy, manage, and integrate  
into a wide range of IT environments.  
With powerful yet flexible capabilities— 
such as PoD scalability from 8 to 16 or  
24 ports in 8-port increments—the Brocade
300 enables organizations to start small
and grow their storage networks in a
non-disruptive manner. In addition,
organizations can initially deploy 4 Gbps
Small Form-Factor Pluggables (SFPs) and
upgrade to 8 Gbps SFP+ when necessary.

BACKWARD AND FORWARD 

COMPATIBILITY

The Brocade 300 operates seamlessly  
with existing Brocade switches through
native E_Port connectivity into Brocade
Fabric OS



(FOS) or M-Enterprise OS (M-EOS)

* 

environments. In addition, the Brocade 300
can enable future expansion to larger
core-to-edge network architectures as
business needs dictate.

To facilitate deployment, the Brocade 300
integrates easily into heterogeneous server
environments such as Windows, UNIX, Linux,
Solaris, and AIX, as well as virtual server
environments. As a result, these capabilities
make it ideal for SAN solutions such as
virtual server deployment, LAN-free backup,
and server and storage consolidation.

A BETTER WAY TO IMPROVE 

BUSINESS OPERATIONS

One of the primary benefits of a SAN
environment is the consolidation of
hardware resources. This centralized
approach helps increase operational
efficiency and staff productivity, two critical
requirements for small and medium-sized
organizations. With fewer physical resources
to manage, staff members can handle
additional business growth or focus on other
strategic initiatives.

High-performance 8 Gbps Fibre Channel
capabilities speed data transfer to help
keep data flowing and applications running.
As a result, organizations can significantly
improve storage utilization in distributed
e-mail environments, for example. In
addition, a SAN-based architecture enables
LAN-free backup and more efficient data
center resource management—increasing
overall system performance and productivity
(see Figure 1).

SUPERIOR NETWORK PERFORMANCE 

The Brocade 300 provides high performance
with all ports capable of operating at 1, 2, 4,
and 8 Gbps to enable up to 192 Gbps of
uncongested throughput. Auto-sensing and
speed-matching of data traffic provides
interoperability with previous 1, 2, and 4 Gbps
devices. To provide more targeted performance,
enhanced Brocade Inter-Switch Link (ISL)
Trunking combines up to eight ISLs between a
pair of switches into a single, logical high-speed
trunk capable of up to 64 Gbps of throughput.

SIMPLIFIED MANAGEMENT

Brocade 300 setup and configuration is
simplified with the Brocade EZSwitchSetup
wizard, which makes switch configuration,
deployment, and management an easy
three-step point-and-click process. For
multi-switch environments, Brocade
Network Advisor provides comprehensive
management of data center fabrics,
including configuration, monitoring, and
management of Brocade backbones,
switches, and adapters. The Brocade 300,
which is Microsoft Simple SAN-compatible,
also has a USB port that increases
serviceability and error logging by facilitating
firmware upgrades and downloads of
system log files.

TRAFFIC MEASUREMENT AND 

ADAPTIVE NETWORKING 

The Brocade 300 offers Bottleneck Detection,
Top Talkers (part of Brocade Advanced
Performance Monitoring), and Adaptive
Networking, a suite of tools including Ingress
Rate Limiting, Traffic Isolation, and Quality of
Service (QoS). These advanced capabilities
help optimize fabric behavior and ensure ample
bandwidth for mission-critical applications.

Bottleneck Detection identifies and alerts
administrators to “slow drain” storage devices
causing latency and I/O timeouts, particularly
in highly virtualized server environments.
Top Talkers measures the top bandwidth-
consuming traffic (including by individual
virtual machine) in real time over a physical
device connection or throughout a network
switch. Ingress Rate Limiting restricts data flow
from less-critical hosts at preset bandwidths.
Traffic Isolation dedicates paths in the fabric
to high-bandwidth data flows. And QoS
expedites critical traffic in the event of
congestion while keeping all traffic flowing.

BROCADE ACCESS GATEWAY MODE

The Brocade 300 can be deployed as a
full-fabric switch or as a Brocade Access
Gateway, which simplifies server
connectivity into heterogeneous SANs
(the default mode setting is a switch).
Brocade Access Gateway mode utilizes
N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) switch
standards to present physical and
virtual servers directly to the core of
SAN fabrics. This makes it transparent
to the SAN fabric, greatly reducing
management of the network edge. The
Brocade 300 in Brocade Access
Gateway mode can connect servers to
NPIV-enabled Brocade B-Series,
M-Series, or other SAN fabrics.

Organizations can easily enable Brocade
Access Gateway mode via Brocade
Network Advisor, Brocade Web Tools,  
or a Command Line Interface (CLI).  
Key benefits of Brocade Access Gateway
mode include:

• Improved scalability for large or  

rapidly growing server and virtual
server environments

• Reduced management of the network

edge since Brocade Access Gateway
does not have a domain identity and
appears transparent to the core fabric

• Support for heterogeneous SAN

configurations without reduced
functionality for server connectivity