IBM today announced agreements for networking technology with Brocade, Cisco and Juniper to help businesses more effectively route the enormous amount of data and transactions being driven by an increasingly instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent world.

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IBM is announcing reseller and original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreements for switches and routers that help move and manage data across networks. Demands on networks are increasing with the proliferation of the mobile web and connected sensors expected to lead to 16-fold growth in each individual's "information footprint" by 2020, according to IBM.

  New and/or expanded networking supplier relationships announced today:


  --  Brocade -- IBM has introduced the IBM Converged Switch B32 and 10Gb
      Converged Network Adapter (CNA) for IBM System x, its first Fibre
      Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) offerings, manufactured by Brocade. This
      expands upon the long-standing Fibre Channel and recently announced
      Ethernet solution OEM agreement between both companies. The IBM
      Converged Switch B32 and CNAs are available immediately.

FCoE represents an emerging technology that provides faster networking performance and offers customers the potential to simplify their datacenter infrastructure and lower both capital and operational expenses via the consolidation of multiple data traffic flows over a shared network.

  --  Cisco -- IBM has expanded its long-standing relationship with Cisco
      through a new agreement enabling its Systems & Technology Group
      sellers and partners to resell the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches, a
      leading family of high-performance, low-latency switches for data
      center networks supporting lossless 10GbE, Fibre Channel and Fibre
      Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). These products may be ordered
      immediately and are expected to be available in September 2009.


  --  Juniper Networks - IBM today is announcing an original equipment
      manufacturing (OEM) agreement with Juniper Networks where IBM will
      rebrand and sell selected Juniper EX and MX switches and routers.
      Availability expected later this year. This expands upon IBM and
      Juniper's long-term relationship that includes a reseller agreement
      with IBM Global Technology Services, as well as collaboration on
      Juniper's Stratus Project, and IBM's ten worldwide Cloud Labs.

IBM will also provide services through its Global Technology Services unit to integrate and support these networking products, and offers IBM Systems Director and Tivoli network management software to manage the flow of data and transactions.

For more information about IBM and IBM's networking switches and offerings, visit http://www.ibm.com/systems/networking.

  Mike Darcy
  IBM Communications
  914-766-4777
  mdarcy@us.ibm.com

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact: mdarcy@us.ibm.com

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SOURCE: IBM