UPDATED 11:30 EDT / JUNE 14 2012

Keys to Cloud Success: Security, Flexibility, Reliability and Management Simplicity

During the Dell Storage Forum 2012 in Boston today, Brocade Global Solutions Architect Roger Bouchard met with Stu Miniman of Wikibon.org as part of theCube’s conference coverage (full video below). Bouchard, the author of the book “Security Fibre Channel Fabrics,” talked about the importance of bridging the gap between storage and security when it comes to the cloud.

“In talking to customers about SAN security, it used to be that storage administrators would have their eyes glaze over when asking them about security,” Bouchard said. “And when talking to the security team, they saw the SAN as a black box that they knew was on the network but did not really understand. Today, with an increased understanding of the importance of data on the SAN—including mission critical apps, personal data and intellectual property—businesses have to make sure the data is well protected. There has thus been a shift where security and storage teams are now working closely together.”

Bouchard added that the advent of the cloud model has forced security, networking and storage teams to work closely together to address security, which is an impediment to businesses moving to the cloud, particularly when it comes to data confidentiality. “There is concern with data in public clouds going over public networks,” Bouchard said. “Businesses want data to remain confidential—this is the main concern.”

Fibre Addresses Cloud Security Concerns

Data centers exist in physically-enclosed areas with boundaries in place so that equipment is physically secure. But enterprises also need to be concerned about insiders—employees, vendors, contractors—that can make mistakes or act maliciously within the data center. “Security is not just about technology counter measures, it’s also about procedures and making sure you reduce errors,” Bouchard said. “If someone has access rights, things can go wrong—intentionally or unintentionally.”

Brocades switch technology enables the cloud model to take on the security challenge. Not only do Brocade switches feature 16GB/second bandwidth to enable virtualization, but they also have encryption capability within the ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) that allows businesses to secure ISLs between data centers when replicating data. Brocade has also added diagnostic tools that simplify cloud infrastructure-management so that IT does not need as many cloud management resources.

“Cloud is a game changer, but you need flexibility,” Bouchard added. “Our port-on-demand feature allows you to grow your fabric as you require. If cloud is not simple to manage, it will cost more money, so we have added management features so enterprise can do more with less. Reliability is another key. You won’t be successful without guaranteed reliability, which is another area we are strong in.”

The Brocade-Dell Relationship

Bouchard said the Brocade model works well in conjunction with the Dell-Compellant fluid architecture model, and that Brocade switches scale up easily as business needs fluctuate. “Every fibre channel switch offers an entry-level version, and when you reach that capacity, you can easily upgrade to get more physical ports.” Bouchard explained. “You can also add more switches to grow to any size fabric you need. We have customers with thousands of ports on a single fabric.”

In discussing latency issues that have been prevalent in the industry lately, Bouchard revealed how Brocade recently conducted some testing with SSD (Solid State Drives) and pulled a million IOPS (Inputs/Output Operations per Second) pass-throughs for date going between servers and storage through Brocade fibre switches. “SSD is great, but if you can’t feed it and pull the data as fast as the SSD can handle it, you are back to square one. We have eliminated that bottleneck with our 16GB technology that produces high IOPS.”


A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Your vote of support is important to us and it helps us keep the content FREE.

One click below supports our mission to provide free, deep, and relevant content.  

Join our community on YouTube

Join the community that includes more than 15,000 #CubeAlumni experts, including Amazon.com CEO Andy Jassy, Dell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, and many more luminaries and experts.

“TheCUBE is an important partner to the industry. You guys really are a part of our events and we really appreciate you coming and I know people appreciate the content you create as well” – Andy Jassy

THANK YOU