Intended for IBM Internal and Business Partner education purposes only.

$-

$20,000

$40,000

$60,000

$80,000

$100,000

$120,000

FCoE SW

Virutal SW

24xSR-Trans

Base

IBM RackSwitch G8264 Verses Brocade VDX 6720-24 (Updated via web prices and info January 3, 2012)

Competitive Overview The following comparison is a summary of IBM RackSwitch G8264 versus Brocade VDX 6720-60. The major advantages of the G8264 are in the areas of cost (acquisition and operational costs), virtualization, rich feature set, ease of management and performance. IBM also has support for end-to-end solutions server, storage, networking & software.

Cost RackSwitch is up to 45% less expensive when you add in options and software

Starting list price of the RackSwitch G8264 is $29,999, compared to the Brocade VDX 6720-60 which starts at

$40,200. But it does not stop there make sure you look at all the additional requirements:

SFP+ SR transceiver costing only $665 for G8124 versus Brocade $1,370 list price (10G-SFPP-SR).

Software to support usage in FCoE environments includes as part of standard IBM Networking OS with the switch, while Brocade charges $6,960 for the software (BR-VDX 6720-24FCOE-01).

VMready which helps with VM mobility is standard with the IBM Networking OS, while Brocade charges $3,600 for their VCS software.

The G8124 comes with a 3 years warranty and software upgrade licenses, while the Brocade comes with a 13 month hardware warranty and 90 day software.

Performance The G8264 is designed for Future

The G8264 comes with four 40Gb Ethernet ports standard; Brocade does not support 40Gb.

The G8264 support up to sixty-four 10Gb Ethernet ports (1280 Gbps), four more than Brocade forty 10Gb

Ethernet ports (1200 Gbps). But what is even more impressive is the fact that IBM does that in a 1U design

versus Brocades 2U design.

The G8264 is ideal for those looking for high performance computing (HPC) clusters, cloud computing and I/O-

intensive low latency applications. The Brocade offering is a multi-chip solution - so there are port-groups.

When the ports are selected in a way which spans across different chip, the latency will be negatively

impacted.

Network Virtualization Innovations

Today, up to 90% of data centers use server virtualization. To maintain a virtual environment, IT has to deal with many issues including identifying and tracking the migration of VMs in the network, setting up and applying network policies to each VM, and pre-provisioning the network to accommodate VM migration. All these activities require lots of manual work and are prone to errors which can potentially compromise data center security. IBM's VMready offers the most cost-effective, secure and open way to enable the virtualized data center, with advanced capabilities:

o Automatically detects virtual machines and assigns configured network policies to virtual machineshelping reduce deployment and management time.

o NMotion transparently moves network policies (security, VLAN and QoS) as virtual machines move from one physical server to another. VMs remain connected and protected as they move (preventing wrong QoS, VLAN and ACL from being applied), while saving server and network admins significant time.

o Interfaces to management platforms support exporting data on VM usage for accounting and change management.

o Brocades VCS fabric mode, there is lot of proprietary technology used and all the switches need to be VDX.

Intended for IBM Internal and Business Partner education purposes only.

G8624 allows clients to carve up a dual port 10G NIC into 2-8 virtual NICs which can significantly reduce acquisition

and operating costs. IBMs management will provide: flexible tuning of bandwidth from 100Mb to 10 GB per vNIC; the

ability to create virtual groups to simplify management; and the ability to isolate vNICs through the use of virtual pipes

between vNIC and switch which helps provide better performance, security and availability.

Energy Efficient IBMs G8264 consumes up 15% less power than Juniper

With the growing concern about power and cooling from both environmental and cost perspectives, the efficiency

of network equipment bears increasing scrutiny. The RackSwitch G8264 consumes 275W compared to the

Brocade which consumes 330 Watts.

Feature Rich Design included Advanced levels of Reliability, Availability, Security and Management

The G8124 is a Layer 2/3 switch and supports features like VRRP, BGP, OSPF, IGMP v3 and L3 multicast today. Brocade is a Layer 2 only.

IBM supports 4 times more MAC addresses

Uplink Failure Detectiona fast (sub-second) and simple network redundancy feature that complements the NIC teaming feature built into Server and Storage devices.

HotLinks which helps increase availability and provides seamless interoperability with other vendors. HotLinks is a sub-second Layer 2 redundancy features that replaces Spanning Tree.

IBM System Networking Element Manager provides server-oriented provisioning through an easy point-and-click management interface for updating large groups of switches. (Optional)

Feature IBM RackSwitch G8264 Brocade VDX 6720-60

10G Ports 48 SFP+ ports standard Up to 64 SFP+ ports

60 SFP+ ports standard

40G Ports 4 None

Support FC ports No No

Max port Thru-put (bi-directional) Gbps 1280Gbps 1200Gbps

Latency 880 nanosecond 600 nanoseconds within 10-port group

Watts 275W 330W

MAC addresses 128k 32K

10Gb Cable Length Up to 8.5m DAC Up to 5m DAC

Airflow Front-to-Rear / Rear-to-Front Front-to-Rear / Rear-to-Front

HS Redundant Power Supplies Yes Yes

Layer 3 Standard BGP, VRRP, etc. No Availability: UFD & HotLinks Yes No

VM aware VMready 4th

Generation VCS

Virtual Fabric Yes No

Rack Space 17.3 W x 19 D x 1 RU 16.88W x 17 D x 2RU Warranty hardware / software 3 years / 3 years 13 months / 90 days

*Brocade cost - http://www.costcentral.com/proddetail/Brocade_Communications_Brocade_VDX_6720/BRVDX672060R/11243853/ ** Specification - http://www.brocade.com/downloads/documents/data_sheets/product_data_sheets/vdx_6720_ds.pdf Warranty - http://www.brocade.com/services-support/returns-warranties/warranties.page?#_Product_Warranty_GuidelinesDetails

Intended for IBM Internal and Business Partner education purposes only.

Legal Information

IBM Corporation 2012 IBM Systems and Technology Group Dept. U2SA 3039 Cornwallis Road Research Triangle Park, NC 27709

Produced in the USA January 2012 All rights reserved.

For a copy of applicable product warranties, write to: Warranty Information, P.O. Box 12195, RTP, NC 27709, Attn: Dept. JDJA/B203. IBM makes no representation or warranty regarding third-party products or services including those designated as ServerProven

or

ClusterProven. Telephone support may be subject to additional

charges. For onsite labor, IBM will attempt to diagnose and resolve the problem remotely before sending a technician.

IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, RackSwitch, SmartConnect, NMotion, Rackonomics, and VMready and are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol ( or TM), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at "Copyright and trademark information" at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml

Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

IBM reserves the right to change specifications or other product

information without notice. References in this publication to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which IBM operates. IBM PROVIDES THIS PUBLICATION AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow disclaimer of express or implied warranties in certain transactions; therefore, this statement may not apply to you.

This publication may contain links to third party sites that are not under the control of or maintained by IBM. Access to any such third party site is at the user's own risk and IBM is not responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any information, data, opinions, advice or statements made on these sites. IBM provides these links merely as a convenience and the inclusion of such links does not imply an endorsement.

Information in this presentation concerning non-IBM products was obtained from the suppliers of these products, published announcement material or other publicly available sources. IBM has not tested these products and cannot confirm the accuracy of performance, compatibility or any other claims related to non-IBM products. Questions on the capabilities of non-IBM products should be addressed to the suppliers of those products.

Performance is in Internal Throughput Rate (ITR) ratio based on measurements and projections using standard IBM benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput that any user will experience will depend on considerations such as the amount of multiprogramming in the users job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve throughput improvements equivalent to the performance ratios stated here.