Brocade enables Tata Sky scale-up datacenter capacity

BENGALURU: Faced with exponential growth in demand for satellite broadcaster and interactive TV services, India’s DTH operator Tata Sky has selected an advanced networking system from Brocade to significantly boost data center capacity.

Tata Sky has been using Brocade FCX network switches for its call center operations. Now, as part of a broader upgrade at its key data center that also increases data storage system capacity from Brocade, the company is set to deploy an efficient and highly scalable Ethernet fabric based on Brocade VDX 6740 switches and Brocade VCS Fabric technology.

Compared to the conventional three-tier switching infrastructure it will replace, the Brocade network solution operates as a single layer and as a single virtual device that delivers low-latency application performance and a much better user experience.

“Tata Sky’s partnership with Brocade is strategic and long term. The core engineering talent and passion to deliver stands out at Brocade. We are planning to consolidate our data centers and Brocade will be our preferred networking partner. High throughput, no latency, and the highest level of automation are key features of Brocade technology that are directly relevant for our IT infrastructure,” said Ravishanker N, Chief Information Officer, Tata Sky.

“The explosive demand for increasingly high-resolution video content across all platforms is making the media and entertainment industry one of the hottest areas in terms of adopting new network technology,” said Edgar Dias, Senior Regional Director for Brocade India and SAARC. “Tata Sky will be moving straight to the leading edge with a data center Ethernet fabric that will enable it to scale its network almost effortlessly. The intelligent foundation for the increased virtualization of its data center operations will also give it the agility to better deal with spikes in service demand.”

Brocade indicates that as part of its solution, the company’s VDX 6740 switches support the VCS Fabric technology, which enables a high-performance switching cluster of interconnected switches that are manageable as a single device. By adding switches to the fabric — which is a simple matter of activating the 40 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) interconnects and powering up the devices — Tata Sky will be able to enjoy linear data center scalability in cost-effective increments.

The Brocade VDX switches are designed to support the high-bandwidth demands of virtual machine hosts, delivering a high density of wire-speed 10 GbE ports in a top-of-r ack configuration. The low-latency port-to-port performance across the VCS fabric enables it to efficiently manage the high level of ‘East-West’ traffic typical of cloud data centers. The VCS fabric will also provide Tata Sky with a high level of network automation and virtual machine awareness, thereby increasing the agility of its data center operations.