Brocade facilitates IPv6 Internet Transformation

Brocade has announced software release version 12.3 for the Brocade ServerIron ADX Series of application delivery switches, which enables these platforms to act as a seamless gateway between existing IPv4 networks and new ones built on IPv6. This gateway functionality provides Brocade customers with a pragmatic path to adopt IPv6 technology and support both IPv4 and IPv6 environments simultaneously, offering them a seamless and non-disruptive migration strategy.

IPv6 technology offers a more robust suite of characteristics and dramatically increases the pool of global IP addresses while simplifying network administration, resolving security and mobility issues and improving Quality of Service (QoS). These benefits help Brocade customers take advantage of emerging IT initiatives, such as cloud computing, through high-performance, highly scalable and secure IP networks.

"Adoption of new Internet-enabled devices is outpacing the residual capacity of IPv4 addresses, while at the same time the explosive growth in traffic requires far more scalability than today's application delivery solutions offer," said Jason Nolet, Vice-President, Enterprise and Data Centre Products, Brocade. "Our new software enhancements to the Brocade ServerIron ADX application delivery switches provide organizations with greater choice to seamlessly adopt IPv6 while effectively doubling the performance of their existing ServerIron ADX switches immediately and at no cost. This provides a scalable, high-performance application delivery solution that increases business agility and operational efficiency, especially in today's highly virtualized and emerging cloud-based environments."

The Brocade ServerIron ADX enables a dual-protocol network through a simplified, yet feature-rich, standards-based IPv4-to-IPv6 translation technology.  Unlike router-based translation solutions that only offer basic Layer 3 translation services, the Brocade solution has the high- performance Layer 7 intelligence required to ensure continued operations of real world applications and protocols. This enables service providers, enterprises and government agencies to systematically adopt IPv6 capabilities without the costly process of replacing their existing IPv4 application infrastructure. Moreover, organizations with IPv6-only capable clients can now connect them to existing IPv4 resources, providing organizations the ability to service to a new population of IPv6-only based clients.