Network News: Avaya and Level 3, Brocade

Here’s our review of some of today’s noteworthy links for the networking sector of the data center industry:

Avaya partners with Level 3 for AvayaLive Connect.  At the Enterprise Connect 2012 conference Avaya announced its plan to establish a strategic relationship with Level 3 Communications in support of the AvayaLive Connect solution in the U.S.  As part of the new AvayaLive suite of public cloud-based solutions it will combine with Level 3's IP-based communication services to support small businesses that can be traditional or highly virtual organizations with multiple offices, remote and mobile employees. "The AvayaLive Connect solution is a great way for small businesses to enjoy the benefits of unified communications without the burden of cumbersome implementations and ongoing management overhead," said Sara Baack, Senior Vice President, Voice Services, Level 3 Communications. "We strongly believe there is an excellent market opportunity for hosted solutions that allow customers to control communication expenditures and focus on their core business."  Also announced as a part of the suite Avaya unveiled the Collaborative Cloud, a strategic framework for delivering communications and collaboration applications and services to businesses through public, private and hybrid cloud models.

Brocade selected by Euro Media Group.  Brocade (BRCD) announced that United, part of the Euro Media Group, has selected Brocade to deliver an end-to-end data center networking solution based on Ethernet fabric technology and its 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) core routing platform. Confronted with the challenge of managing multiple data feeds for various clients, United looked to significantly update and simplify its networking architecture to improve service levels to its customers. "In our line of work, managing huge data volumes is nothing new," said Marc Ruesen, manager of Business Development at United. "However, over the past two years it had become all too apparent that our disparate IT environment was no longer fit for our constantly evolving business needs. Coming at the same time as a planned move to a new facility by consolidating four buildings into one, we knew that the time was right to make a wholesale change to our data center network, radically improve performance, and also take an innovative approach to its design."  United selected Brocade VDX 6720 Data Center switches as well as the primary building blocks for Ethernet fabrics. At the network core, Brocade MLXe Series routers were selected.