Today, despite the publicity out there, fibre channel remains the dominant protocol, not only in architectures supporting online databases, but also virtual infrastructures. Although speed and bandwidth are huge assets to storage architectures, they are only part of the equation – don’t get solely focused on the number behind the Gbps. In this on-demand webcast, George Crump, lead analyst at Storage Switzerland, will explore the next generation storage architectures, and focus on why speed alone is not enough – granular control, visibility, scalability and performance all hold the same weight.

This document dives into the five key requirements that enterprises of all sizes should consider when upgrading their storage networking architecture to consider that infrastructure worthy of the label "next generation". It looks at the speed, bandwidth, control, visibility, scalability and reliability minimums that must be met to ensure compatibility with tomorrow's networking and storage demands in the age of cloud and big data. IT Planners need to understand the essential requirements of a storage network architecture so they can choose between an IP protocol based on 10Gb Ethernet, like NFS or iSCSI or 16 Gbps Gen 5 Fibre Channel with 100% backward compatibility to prior generations.

This white paper looks at how flash based storage, whether it is added to an existing hard drive system or a dedicated flash array, can enable data centers to attain a greater ROI on virtualization and database application infrastructure. It looks at the ways flash supports higher levels of density, more virtual machines per host and more users per database instance, and the weaknesses exposed by a near-zero latency storage architecture to the limitations of legacy IP and Fibre Channel storage architectures.

Is your storage network infrastructure running at its peak efficiency? The Brocade SAN Health Diagnostics Capture gives you an easy, accurate, and FREE check-up on the vital statistics of your SAN fabrics and associated multi-vendor components - including switch, topology, and performance benchmarks, allowing you to take inventory of devices, switches, firmware versions, and SAN fabrics. You can capture and display historical port data, compare your zoning and switch configurations with industry best practices, and assess performance statistics while generating detailed reports and diagrams.

What drives storage upgrades? Typically, it has been the obsolescence of the prior architecture. The move to Gen 5, however, may be driven by the adoption of solid-state drives (SSDs) and the desire to quickly take advantage of these assets. This document looks at the implications of new storage technologies on the enterprise network, and how increasingly performant servers are driving the need for ever increasing levels of network performance, even if it breaks the traditional price-performance curves.