cisco or brocade?

i really like Cisco's, their director class switches have been very reliable in my experience (9509). They are multiprotocol, support multiple applications via SSM modules, encryption. As more and more storage connectivity gets transitioned to ip networks ..who's better at it Brocade or Cisco ? . There is a reason Brocade bougth Foundry last summer.

i know cisco have better portfolio. but have you worked with brocade?

if we are only talking about director class ..i have worked with SilkWorm 12000. I remember them being very reliable, although that's old technology now that brocade has DCX class and other directors. If you are not sure what to get ..ask both vendors to do a POC (proof of concept). Bring each vendor's switch, swing a few available ports from your arrays, connect a couple of hosts and play around with switch functionality, do some provisioning, setup VSANs/IVR on Cisco's. No fancy glossy can beat hands on experience

thanks it was very helpful

Both vendors have VSAN / LSAN capability, although Brocade put this feature only in it's storage routers (you can create zones with "lsan_" in front of it, but the 7500 (router) does the routing.
In Cisco each switch supports VSAN's, so if you need to separate logical fabrics, the Cisco IMHO does it somewhat better than Brocade.

But if I had to choose between B and C, I'd prefer Brocade. But I can manage C just fine as well.

So the real question should be: what features do you really need and which vendor fits best ?

To me it comes down to manageability. I can manage both platforms just fine, but I despise Cisco's fabric manager for large SANs, it is just clunky compared to later versions of EFCM and DCFM. I also do not like the over-susbcription ratio on the larger Cisco linecards, and I feel that Brocade's ISL trunking is superior to Cisco. That being said, they both work and are reliable, just comes down to preference.

I usually think that if you have 2 products that are well presented to the "market" it's up to the in hose knowledge what product you should choose. We are running McData, Cisco and Brocade but are focusing on Cisco. And -> i <- think that Cisco have helped us to deliver tiered storage and availability in our installation where VSAN play one role.... But Cisco or Brocade..... well it's up to you.

O one more thing what brand do you have in you LAN, If you have Cisco you might think of FCoE... I believe that Cisco have a good thing going on in that area and I trust them to deliver in the LAN area as thats where they started.

Yeah, with FCoE they sure have something going there. Nexus 5k, 7k (and 1kv on ESX....). But still.... don't rule out Brocade: they've ruled the FC world longer and they know what they're doing !