Brocade has launched a new qualification programe to support solid state storage system vendors who have adopted Fibre Channel as the protocol of choice to optimize application performance in enterprise storage area networking (SAN) environments. In addition to a new solid state storage system qualification program, the company also announced support for the Gen 6 Fibre Channel by the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA).

Solid state storage vendors continue to choose Fibre Channel as the networking protocol of choice by solid state storage system vendors because of its reliability, stability and ability to optimize application performance and availability. Today, a majority of solid state storage system vendors are now shipping systems with Fibre Channel connectivity including Dell, EMC, HDS, HP, IBM, NetApp, Nimbus Data, Pure Storage, Tegile Systems and Violin Memory.

Some vendors are shipping solid state storage systems with Gen 5 connectivity and Brocade expects this trend to continue. In addition, leading host bus adapter (HBA) companies, including Emulex and QLogic, are also now shipping Gen 5 Fibre Channel-enabled products with increased functionality and performance specifically designed for solid state storage.

To support this growing trend of solid state storage system vendors using Fibre Channel, Brocade has launched a new qualification program, Brocade Solid State Ready, to help ensure seamless interoperability and optimum performance with solid state storage in Brocade SAN fabrics.

The Brocade Solid State Ready program provides solid state storage system testing for proper operation across multiple fabrics, heterogeneous servers and host bus adapters in Brocade fabrics. The program is designed for all solid state storage system providers.

“As our customer base increasingly moves to deploy solid state storage in their SAN environments, they are demanding Fibre Channel as a requirement to meet increased application performance levels,” said Jack Rondoni, vice president, Data Center Storage and Solutions, at Brocade. “Because of this trend, our goal is to encourage solid state storage system vendors to complete qualification of their products in the Brocade Solid State Ready program so that our customers, which represent the vast majority of the global installed base of storage networks, can enjoy optimum performance and seamless deployment into their existing SAN fabrics.”