Brocade released a critical component of its Data Center Fabric Architecture this week, a comprehensive management platform designed to provide end-to-end control of a broad swatch of the company's networking systems.

The Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM) offers configuration and management capabilities for everything from the DCX Backbone system to the company's broad lines of directors, extension devices, HBAs and switches. The system can oversee up to 24 multiprotocol fabrics simultaneously, with support for 9,000 fabric ports and 20,000 device ports.

The system is available in two flavors: an enterprise edition designed as an upgrade for the Brocade Fabric Manager or Enterprise Fabric Connectivity Manager systems, and a professional edition aimed at smaller organizations with up to 1,000 SAN ports. Both editions work with the Brocade Fabric OS and M-Enterprise OS to accommodate both physical and virtual data paths, and both use open standard interfaces to integrate with third-party management systems.