Brocade enters HBA market

Brocade is to head into the host bus adapter market with a series of product launches.

The storage company will be offering 4Gbps Fibre Channel and iSCSI host bus adapters (HBA) in the next quarter. This marks the company's first entrance into the 500m server connectivity market.

The company unveiled its new 2110 iSCSI Initiator host bus adapter for enterprise servers running Microsoft Windows or Linux operating systems. It said the adapter offered low cost of ownership and operation with low power consumption and ease of use.

It is also introducing a family of 4Gbps Fibre Channel HBAs on PCI-Express cards. Available as single- and dual-port cards, they will support multiple operating systems. The 2110 will be available immediately while the Fibre Channel HBAs will be on sale by the end of July this year.

The company also said it plans to eventually move onto 8Gbps Fibre Channel and 10Gbps Ethernet product lines that will feature tighter integration with next-generation San switching and data centre networking technologies.

Analysts said that Brocade's move into the HBA market would see it play a bigger role in the design of next-generation enterprise data centres.

"Boosting the scalability, reliability, and efficiency of today's enterprise data centre is a critical challenge for IT executives as they respond to business requirements for new applications, better service, and lower cost of operations," said Rick Villars, Vice President of Storage Systems Research at IDC.

"They need a data centre infrastructure, including servers, storage, and connectivity, that allows them to take advantage of critical technologies such as server virtualisation, data mobility, and robust data protection."