Brocade will supply ICX campus Ethernet switches and NetIron 2000 CER routers to APEXnetworks, a business broadband services provider, for equipment within its distribution network and for deploying at customer premises.
The deal with Brocade will enable the connectivity service provider to redeploy, upgrade and grow its network with redundancy and high-availability solutions.
APEXnetworks, which is facing tough competition in the Australian service provider market, posted 140 percent growth over the past two years in terms of customers and bandwidth demand.
The company migrated to new data center facilities nationwide and introduced a new generation of Ethernet switching systems that could meet continuing demand, while improving service resilience and operational economics.
Ryan Crouch, chief technology officer and director at APEXnetworks, said: “We were experiencing a large increase in demand from our customers in both wide area and private networks. Additionally, as people move more services into the cloud, bigger bandwidth in the core of the network is needed, with a corresponding increase in uplink capacity. Support for new protocols is also important.”
Brocade solution includes Brocade ICX 6610 Switch, which delivers the performance and availability of a chassis-based switch in a stackable form factor. Each switch delivers wire-speed, non-blocking performance across 48 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports and eight 10 GbE ports to support latency-sensitive applications.
The design of the Brocade ICX 6610 enables APEXnetworks’ to increase ports and capacity within its distribution layer simply by adding another switch to the stack. Each switch has four full-duplex 40 Gbps stacking ports that provide a total 320 Gbps of backplane stacking bandwidth with full redundancy.
Besides deploying Brocade ICX 6610 Switches in the distribution layer, APEXnetworks is leveraging Brocade ICX 6450 Switches and Brocade 6910 Ethernet Access Switches at customer sites, enabling it to provision both simple and complex customers with the same platform.
