Brocade's Gen 5 Fibre Channel SAN solutions are now available through Lenovo and its channel partners, after the two vendors singed an OEM deal.

The deal will strengthen Lenovo's play for the data center market, which the company has been targeting since its October 2014 acquisition of IBM's x86 server business.

Brocade says its fixed-port SAN switches seamlessly integrate into Lenovo's server and storage solutions, including the recently announced Lenovo Storage S2200 and S3200 SAN arrays.

The switches include Brocade's fabric vision technologies to maximise uptime, simplify SAN deployment and management and provide visibility and insight into the storage network.

Kamran Amini, Lenovo executive director of EBG product marketing, says combining Lenovo servers and Lenovo SAN arrays with Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel ‘creates complete solutions that offer affordable innovation and unmatched performance to address the ever-demanding needs of our global customers'.

“Seamless interoperability with Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel SAN fabrics ensures trouble-free deployments that help to enhance the unique value delivered by our new storage arrays,” Amini says.

Gary Denman, Brocade Australia and New Zealand senior director, says the deal enables Lenovo customers of all sizes to experience the performance benefits of Gen 5 Fibre Channel, from ThinkServer and System x users to enterprise-class Flex System clients.