• Accelerate Your Enterprise SAN with Brocade X6-8 Gen 6 Fibre Channel Director – 512×32 Gb/s Ports, 20.5 Tb/s Bandwidth, UltraScale ICL

    Keywords

    Brocade X6-8 Gen6#Brocade X6-8 Gen6, Gen6 Fibre Channel#Gen6 Fibre Channel, 32Gb FC switching#32Gb FC switching, UltraScale ICL#UltraScale ICL, high-density SAN director#high-density SAN director, Fabric Vision analytics#Fabric Vision analytics, low-latency SAN#low-latency SAN, modular chassis SAN#modular chassis SAN, enterprise storage backbone#enterprise storage backbone

    Description

    The [Brocade X6-8 Gen6](#Brocade X6-8 Gen6) Fibre Channel director is a next-generation SAN backbone engineered for the most demanding virtualized and flash-accelerated environments. In a single 14 U chassis, it delivers a total bandwidth of 20.5 Tb/s, comprised of 16.384 Tb/s port throughput (512 × 32 Gb/s) plus 4.096 Tb/s of UltraScale inter-chassis link (ICL) capacity. This extreme throughput empowers organizations to consolidate fabrics, reduce oversubscription, and simplify management while supporting both 32 Gb/s and legacy speeds.

    Built on a high-performance fabric with 1.536 Tb/s per slot, the X6-8 delivers true line-rate forwarding for Brocade FC32-48 blades and minimal oversubscription on FC32-64 blades. With sub-microsecond latency (<780 ns local switching, 2.6 µs blade-to-blade) and 15 360 frame buffers per ASIC, you achieve consistently low-latency transport—ideal for mission-critical database, VDI, and cloud workloads.

    Integrated Fabric Vision analytics provide end-to-end visibility and proactive monitoring. Features like MAPS threshold alerts, FPI latency detection, ClearLink optical diagnostics, and Flow Vision per-flow insights help you avoid performance bottlenecks and meet SLAs with confidence. The result is a resilient, scalable SAN director that forms the foundation of modern data center architectures.

    Key Features

    • Massive Chassis Bandwidth: 20.5 Tb/s per chassis (512 × 32 Gb/s + 4.096 Tb/s ICL)

    • High Slot Throughput: 1.536 Tb/s per slot for true line-rate performance

    • Ultra-Low Latency: <780 ns port-to-port, 2.6 µs blade-to-blade at 32 Gb/s

    • High Port Density: Up to 512 universal Fibre Channel ports on X6-8

    • Multi-Protocol Support: FC-PH, FICON®, FCIP, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet

    • Fabric Vision™ Technology: MAPS, FPI, ClearLink, Flow Vision, COMPASS automation

    • Flexible Media Support: SFP+, SFP28, QSFP for 10/16/25/32/40 Gb/s FC/Ethernet

    • Modular Form Factor: 14 U chassis (X6-8) or 8 U (X6-4) for midsize deployments

    • Redundancy & Reliability: Hot-swappable control, power, cooling; >99.999% uptime

    Configuration

    Component X6-8 Specification
    Chassis 14 U Brocade X6-8 director, 8 vertical blade slots
    Port Bandwidth 512 × 32 Gb/s Fibre Channel (16.384 Tb/s)
    ICL Bandwidth 32 × 128 Gb/s UltraScale inter-chassis links (4.096 Tb/s)
    Slot Bandwidth 1.536 Tb/s per slot (line rate)
    Latency <780 ns port-to-port; 2.6 µs blade-to-blade at 32 Gb/s
    Frame Buffer 15 360 buffers per switching ASIC
    Port Types F_Port, E_Port, EX_Port, M_Port, SIM, D_Port, VE_Port
    Media Compatibility SFP+, SFP28, QSFP (10/16/25/32/40 Gb/s FC/Ethernet); OM3/OM4 fibers, SMF
    Fabric Services Adaptive Networking, BB credit recovery, zoning, DPS, FDMI, FSPF, Flow Vision, ClearLink, COMPASS
    Redundancy Dual control processors, hot-swap power & cooling modules

    Compatibility

    The [X6-8 director](#Brocade X6-8 Gen6) seamlessly integrates with existing Gen 5 and Gen 6 Fibre Channel fabrics, interoperating with HBA, storage arrays (EMC, NetApp, HPE), and mainframe environments via FICON®. It supports FCIP for SAN extension over IP, and FCoE on QSFP blades for converged network implementations. UltraScale ICLs link up to ten chassis in active-active topologies, enabling fabric consolidation across data halls.

    Usage Scenarios

    Virtualization Clusters: Deploy the X6-8 to underpin large VMware or Hyper-V clusters. Its low-latency, high-bandwidth fabric accelerates VM migrations, vSAN traffic, and container I/O for private clouds.

    All-Flash Storage Fabrics: Maximize next-gen all-flash array performance. With 32 Gb/s port speeds and abundant frame buffers, flash-optimized deployments see minimal FC bottlenecks and consistent IOPS delivery.

    Mainframe Connectivity & DR: Leverage FICON blades for z/OS environments, while FCIP links provide encrypted, compressed replication between sites. Fabric Vision analytics ensure any performance degradation is detected before SLAs are impacted.

    Scale-Out SAN Designs: Use UltraScale ICLs to create mesh or core-edge fabrics. Reduce inter-switch cabling by up to 75% and free up 25% of ports for server and storage expansion.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    Q1: How many chassis can be interconnected using UltraScale ICLs?
    You can link up to ten X6-series chassis via UltraScale optical ICLs, supporting mesh or core-edge SAN topologies.

    Q2: Can the X6-8 mix different Fibre Channel speeds?
    Yes—Gen6 directors support native 32, 16, 10, 8, 4, and 2 Gb/s ports concurrently, plus FICON and FCIP, enabling heterogeneous speed fabrics.

    Q3: What proactive monitoring does Fabric Vision provide?
    Fabric Vision includes MAPS for threshold alerts, FPI for latency detection, ClearLink for optical diagnostics, Flow Vision for per-flow analysis, and COMPASS for automated configuration deployment.

    Q4: What forms of media does the X6-8 support?
    The X6-8 accepts hot-pluggable SFP+, SFP28, and QSFP transceivers for FC and Ethernet speeds from 10 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s, across multimode (OM3/OM4) and single-mode fiber.

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