Brocade Moves Beyond FC

In a move that almost seems designed to show how desperately it needs to move into markets beyond Fibre Channel, Brocade Communications Systems will release an iSCSI initiator.

The initiator, which acts as the client and "initiates" iSCSI requests, is an interesting product for a company considered to be the "High Church of Fibre Channel." It shows that iSCSI is a real threat to FC.

Also on tap from Brocade: a 10 Gigabit Ethernet offering that is not only a tacit admission of FC's limits but also an exercise in desperation. The 10-GbE market is one of the most competitive switching environments out there, meaning Brocade's storage acumen will get it some adherents, but it likely won't be enough to make the company a 10-GbE player.