Brocade Buys Foundry for $3B - Let the FCOE Battles Begin

"Brocade Buys Foundry for $3B - Let the FCOE Battles Begin
Posted by Howard Marks, Jul 22, 2008

After the close of trading yesterday Brocade announced that they were going to buy Foundry Networks for $19.75 in cash and stock or a total of 3 billion dollars. This acquisition puts Brocade in a much better position in the coming data center network wars as just being the dominant Fibre Channel switch vendor isn't worth much as large enterprise datacenters move from separate storage and communications networks to a converged Ethernet.

As the FCOE advocates see it each server needs just 2 10Gbps Ethernet cables to a pair of "top of rack" switches and those two connections will carry storage and other network traffic like peaches and cream across a converged network. Since Cisco is the only vendor to make both Fibre Channel and Ethernet switches they've been big proponents of FCOE (Fibre Channel Over Ethernet) and have the first, pre-standard, top of stack switch.

For Brocade to remain a player in the data center they need to have more than 10Gbps Ethernet blades for their DMX switch or Cisco will just keep nibbling up the edges. The network guys will use Cisco switches for the servers and just uplink them to the DMX for storage services. Once that happens when the time for a new core switch comes around Cisco looks like a natural. With the Foundry buy Brocade picks up a respectable line of high-end Ethernet switching gear it can use to maintain its position as FCOE comes to market

I've written about how I dislike FCOE in the past, even called it a protocol nobody needs, but in my old age I'm starting to mellow. Running Fibre Channel Protocol over 10Gbps Ethernet lets those large organizations with well managed Fiber Channel infrastructures to use the hard earned knowledge and tools they use to manage the FC network to run the FCOE net.

One of the reasons I've been doubtful about FCOE is the question of ownership of the converged switches FCOE travels over especially the combination switches that have both FC and 10 gig ports. The network group in most organizations is going to be yelling "They're Cisco Ethernet switches so we should run them" while the storage admins scream "You guys don't understand storage and will bankrupt the company if we let you run the SAN switches".

Brocade stands to do well in the organizations where the storage guys lead the way. Due to the sales process, finger-pointing and a history, now mostly resolved, of Fibre Channel interoperability issues the vast majority of Fibre Channel SANs are more homogenous than a typical LAN with 1 vendor's switches and HBAs predominant. SAN guys buy their switches from their storage vendors (Over 90% of Brocades sales are OEM through EMC, HDS and the other array vendors) so Brocades relationships with the OEMs should help them compete against the ubiquitous Cisco rep.

Clearly Brocade had to sell Ethernet, or more accurately Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) that Cisco calls Data Center Ethernet, the lossless, prioritized super-duper Ethernet variant that FCOE really runs on. Foundry was the best positioned of the remaining players to remain a going business while also supporting Brocade's needs in the data center. They could have bought Force 10, Extreme or Woven for less but they would have gotten less.

As a Foundry customer at the college I'm going to have to see how things shake out. Brocade may decide to end some of Foundry's peripheral product lines like server load balancers and wireless. For now I'm just glad my sales rep, who was our SE for years, can cash in his options.

Cisco looks to globalize through 'brainforming'

By Stephen Lawson , IDG News Service , 06/26/2008

Innovation in places all over the world is driving a second phase of globalization, and Cisco Systems wants to tap into that trend through "brainforming," the networking giant's CTO said Wednesday.

Brainforming is different from brainstorming because it lets you filter ideas and come up with solutions while still collecting proposals, said Padmasree Warrior, who joined Cisco from Motorola earlier this year. Web 2.0 technologies such as wikis and social networking can help make it happen, she said.

Warrior spoke to reporters in San Francisco from the Cisco Live user conference in Orlando via Cisco's Telepresence high-definition conference system. She and other executives highlighted the company's embrace of globalization, including the establishment of its Globalization Centre East in Bangalore, India, last year and efforts to develop talent around the world.

"Traditionally, capital flowed from developed markets to emerging markets and emerging markets were passive recipients of innovation. That model will change in the next few years, where we'll have multiple centers of economic power," Warrior said.

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The IT industry enabled globalization and is now helping to bring about its second wave, she said. "Ten years ago ... we always created products and solutions for the developed markets, and then we stripped off features and we took them to emerging markets to try to sell them there," Warrior said.

Now innovation, as well as capital, is coming from emerging markets as well, she said. For example, India has developed ways of using SMS (Short Message Service) for mobile transactions that are new to developed countries, Warrior said.

Meanwhile, emerging markets will have unique requirements that Cisco will need to develop for, and there will be a more diverse set of ideas being aired about technology, she said.

To meet the growing demand for its technology in emerging markets, Cisco is aggressively expanding its education and training efforts, other executives said Wednesday. There will be a need for 3 million more people trained on Cisco technologies in the next five years, 80 percent of whom will work for the company's customers, they said. The others will be needed at channel partners and Cisco itself.

Cisco already has regional training centers in Johannesburg and Amman, Jordan, under its Global Talent Acceleration Program. It plans to open ones in India and China, probably by year's end, executives said.

The company also plans to set up two more globalization centers like the one in Bangalore, where Cisco has placed several high-level executives and plans to place one-fifth of its executives across all corporate functions by 2012.

Discussing her new position, Warrior praised the corporate culture at Cisco as customer-focused and pragmatic.

"We know what we're good at and we know what we need to go after," she said.

Visual networking -- combining elements of social networking into video -- is Cisco's best bet over the next three to five years, Warrior said. Collaboration and application delivery through WebEx is another big bet, she said. But the company's routing and switching foundation will also be important, she added.

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"I think our core strengths are going to be very important going forward ... as bandwidth demands go up, you need that strength," Warrior said.

More unpredictable is whether Cisco can truly innovate for emerging markets and which of those markets will take off, she said.

Another initiative with some risks attached is the company's move into sports and entertainment, showcased in its plans for Cisco Field, a stadium for the Oakland Athletics' baseball team in Fremont, California. It would have a wireless network for spectators to watch instant replays and order food, as well as smartphone-based electronic admission tickets. Both of those are very early in their development, she said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

All contents copyright 1995-2008 Network World, Inc. http://www.networkworld.com

How to make web 2.0 seem like high school educational films

OK, so maybe she's smart and driven, but could someone PLEASE help her out with jazzing up her introduction video?! That "jingle" at the beginning and end sounds like that silly comercial "One to grow On" from back when I was a kid!

Slow Down Hurts IT?

Bear markets and economic worries tend to cloud the way companies see things. During touch times, management has a tendency of painting IT departments as nothing more than a cost-center. Interestingly, this is when resellers jump in to stretch IT budgets and save the day. Or so says one reseller...

Cisco Sees Green?

Miercom Announces "Certified Green" Evaluation Program

April 29, 2008: 03:00 PM EST

Miercom is pleased to announce that the Cisco® Catalyst® 3750-E, 3560-E, 3750, 3560, and 2960 Series Switches are the first products to be designated as Certified Green.

Testing and evaluation of the Certified Green Cisco fixed switches revealed:

-- Efficient power draw under various real-world network conditions
-- High-efficiency power supply operation with intelligent power
management capabilities
-- Superior product efficiency, including VLAN, remote management, and
other green enabling features.

"I would like to congratulate Cisco on being the first company to receive recognition under this new program. Miercom recognizes technologies such as virtualization, energy standby features, and functionality consolidation as being equally important in a product's environmental impact as the power it consumes -- a measurement that seemingly preoccupies other vendors and labs with 'green wash' attempts," said Rob Smithers, CEO of Miercom.

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Great news for Cisco, except for the fact that in an economic slow-down this is probably one of the least important factors in a sys admin's decision making process. perhaps the real benefit of this announcement is all of Cisco's competition will follow suit. Cross your fingers.

A Good indication why Juniper gear Costs More

Pay Hike for Juniper Networks CEO

"SUNNYVALE, Calif. — The chief executive of network provider Juniper Networks Inc. received a pay package that more than tripled in 2007, according to a filing Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The filing showed Scott Kriens, 57, received a higher base salary and awards of stock options and restricted stock, pushing his total pay package up by more than $5 million to $7.5 million, up from $2.3 million, in the previous year."

Things that make you say, hmmmmmmmm!

Foundry Networks Likes Curry

MRO-TEK ties-up with Foundry Networks to target enterprise and service providers

"MRO-TEK today clinched a strategic agreement with Foundry Networks Inc whereby Foundry Networks will provide switching and routing solutions to MRO-TEK’s enterprise and service provider customers in India.

According to the collaboration, MRO-TEK will dispense and assist Foundry’s high-performance enterprise switching, routing, security and application traffic management solutions, including edge and backbone Ethernet switches. The company will also deliver web and content-aware application switches, network-wide security solutions, wireless LAN and access points, wide area access routers and Internet provider and service provider core MPLS routers."

Someone had better have a taste for Tandori!