EMC aims to supply a converged network product set, featuring Ethernet products from Brocade and Cisco.

As announced at EMC World, over the next several months EMC will introduce a full range of Brocade 10Gbit Ethernet switches and selected Cisco Nexus 10Gbit Ethernet switches through the EMC Select program. It will also offer various services around converged networking, supporting protocols such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), iSCSI, and Network-attached Storage (NAS).

The Brocade switches support FCoE and CEE, and the product set includes the FCX series of top-of-rack switches, the TurboIron 24X switch, the NetIron MLX router series and NetIron CES 2000 edge switches, and ServerIron ADX delivery controllers. The products will be available through the EMC Select program in the third quarter.

It's a nice vote of confidence for Brocade's Ethernet product line, which some have perceived to be doing less well than hoped.

A tour around the EMC World exhibition floor reveals a new solid state drive (SSD) under development by STEC called the ZeusRAM, which is said to have better wear-leveling and performance than the current ZeusIOPS enterprise flash drive.

Another stand shows EMC unifying CLARiiON and Celerra file and block storage with a 3U box containing controllers, called Storage Processors, and a second 3U box containing two rows of disk drives. The Centera object storage product is not included in this unification, although the Centera product is now in EMC's unified storage division.

EMC supremo Joe Tucci said the unified product would enable EMC to sell its technology further down market. The separate CLARiiON and Celerra product lines will continue. ®