Data Center Links: NetApp, Cisco, Nimsoft, Brocade

Here’s our review of some of this week’s noteworthy links for the data center industry:

Brocade adopts Piston Cloud. Brocade (BRCD) announced that it is working with Piston Cloud, the enterprise OpenStack company, to help ensure that joint customers can orchestrate and manage Brocade VCS fabric-based network infrastructure using Piston Enterprise OpenStack software. With this partnership, Brocade will deliver pre-tested, and Piston Cloud certified, OpenStack-based solutions for private cloud, for maximum ease of deployment among customers. "The networking layer is an integral component to any cloud deployment and our work with Brocade highlights our joint commitment to an open standards-based approach," said Joshua McKenty, CEO and co-founder at Piston Cloud. "Our ongoing joint development activities with Brocade will result in additional integrated solutions that will deliver compelling business value to customers."

NetApp and Cisco launch ExpressPod. NetApp (NTAP) and Cisco (CSCO) introduced ExpressPod, a prepackaged and tested solution for growing small and medium-sized organizations. The two companies have also added new storage clustering capabilities to the FlexPod data center platform, and announced the release of a validated VMware solution for Oracle Real Application Cluster (RAC) on FlexPod. ExpressPod offers prepackaged and tested solution bundles that are integrated and delivered by joint channel partners. It integrates Cisco UCS C-Series servers, NetApp FAS2220 or FAS2240 storage, and Cisco Nexus 3048 switches with infrastructure management, into an affordable, easy-to-deploy infrastructure solution.“With the introduction of ExpressPod and feature enhancements in FlexPod, NetApp and Cisco offer end-to-end infrastructure solutions for midsized businesses to large enterprises," said Brendon Howe, vice president, Product and Solutions Marketing, NetApp.  "These solutions simplify data center infrastructure deployments and accelerate the move from fragmented application silos to shared, virtualized, and cloud environments.”

Nimsoft adds network flow analysis.  CA Nimsoft announced that it has enhanced CA Nimsoft Monitor with advanced network flow analysis, enabling customers to visualize their IP traffic in ways that can assist them in optimizing application service levels. With version 6 the software includes an automated deployment to accelerate time-to-value, a streamlined user interface with unified, context-rich views and automatically generated, dynamic executive dashboards. ”Since not all traffic is equally important, it is critical for customers to diligently track and analyze their traffic flows,” said Mike Sargent, general manager, Enterprise Management, CA Technologies.  “The addition of network flow analysis to CA Nimsoft Monitor enables customers to aggregate this vital flow data, making it easy for them to quickly and more accurately identify issues and make more informed bandwidth allocation decisions.”