Brocade will invest $100 million into an evaluation program designed for its Asia Pacific customers so they can deploy ethernet fabrics as the foundation for virtualised data centers.

The firm believes that the IT trends driving transformation in this region make it prime to adopt this fundamental technology to migrate to private, public and hybrid cloud computing architectures.

Brocade describes ethernet fabric as a new category of networking technology, purpose-built for virtualisation and cloud-optimised data centers.

On the back of the investment the company says it will compete aggressively for virtualisation and cloud computing business.

"Brocade intends to compete aggressively for the virtualisation and cloud computing business in Asia Pacific because this region is so important to our company's long-term growth strategy" said Mike Klayko, CEO of Brocade. "We believe we have a highly differentiated offering in the ethernet fabric space that is based on a 15-year heritage of technical innovation and experience in building the world's most mission-critical data center networks."

Eligible Brocade customers can use the programme to test ethernet fabric and other cloud-infrastructure products and support from Brocade at no cost with the option to purchase from a preferred Brocade partner.

"Growing a business requires continued investment especially in a region as competitive as Asia Pacific" added Deb Dutta, vice president and general manager of Asia Pacific for Brocade. "These investments demonstrate how strategic we view the opportunities in this region and reflect our confidence in our ability to grow our business in core and emerging markets here."