Brocade — 25 prefixes (MA-L); Fibre Channel SAN switching, OUI = enterprise storage-network gear

Brocade Communications Systems LLC holds 25 MA-L blocks in the IEEE registry, all registered to the address 1320 Ridder Park Dr, San Jose, CA, US 95131. Verified samples include 00:05:1E, 00:60:69, 00:E0:52, 08:00:88, CC:4E:24, and BC:E9:E2. Brocade was founded in 1995 and built its business on Fibre Channel directors and switches — the fabric infrastructure that connects servers to storage arrays in enterprise data centers. The company is no longer independent: Broadcom acquired Brocade in November 2017, kept the SAN/Fibre Channel product lines, and still ships them under the Brocade brand (Gen 7/8 SAN switches). Brocade's data-center Ethernet switching and routing business (originally Foundry Networks) was sold to Extreme Networks in 2018, and Ruckus Wireless went to Arris. For triage, a Brocade OUI is a strong signal of SAN/Fibre Channel storage infrastructure rather than campus or consumer LAN hardware; seeing one outside a data-center storage context is unusual and worth verifying. Legacy gear running unpatched Fabric OS or SANnav carries a meaningful CVE surface (see Fields).

IEEE assignment

25 prefixes → "Brocade Communications Systems LLC", registered San Jose, CA, US [Confirmed] — local IEEE registry (enrichment/registries/oui.csv) cross-confirmed by https://maclookup.app/vendors/brocade-communications-systems-llc

Registry / block size

MA-L only (24-bit OUI); exactly 25 blocks. No MA-M (mam.csv) or MA-S (oui36.csv) assignments exist for this org. [Confirmed] — local IEEE registry CSVs (oui.csv = 25 hits; mam.csv = 0; oui36.csv = 0). NOTE: IEEE's public OUI data publishes NO assignment/registration date (oui.csv columns are only Registry, Assignment, Organization Name, Organization Address); any "date registered" on third-party tools (e.g. maclookup.app values for early prefixes or BC:E9:E2) is a database artifact, not an IEEE fact.

HQ / country

1320 Ridder Park Dr, San Jose, CA 95131, US (IEEE registry address; the company was headquartered in San Jose) [Confirmed] — IEEE MA-L registry; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocade_Communications_Systems

Company status

not independent — Broadcom Inc. acquired Brocade in November 2017 (~$5.5B). Broadcom retained the SAN/Fibre Channel lines and still sells them under the "Brocade" brand. Data-center Ethernet switching/routing (ex-Foundry) sold to Extreme Networks (closed 2018); Ruckus Wireless sold to Arris. [Confirmed] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocade_Communications_Systems ; https://investors.broadcom.com/news-releases/news-release-details/extreme-networks-acquire-brocades-data-center-networking

Founded

1995 (founded August 1995 by Seth Neiman, Kumar Malavalli, and Paul R. Bonderson) [Confirmed] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocade_Communications_Systems

Device types

Fibre Channel directors and switches (core SAN fabric); SAN extension appliances; embedded/blade-server switches; SAN management software (SANnav, DCFM); historically Ethernet switches/routers (Foundry, → Extreme 2018) and Ruckus wireless APs (→ Arris). Brocade OUIs in the wild most commonly appear on Fibre Channel SAN switches in data centers. [Confirmed] — https://www.broadcom.com/products/fibre-channel-networking ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundry_Networks

Notable products

Brocade Fabric OS (FOS) switch operating system; 6505/6510/6520/G610/G620/G630/G720/G820 FC switches; DCX/X6/X7/X8 Directors; SANnav management software; (historical) ICX Ethernet switches, Ruckus wireless APs [Confirmed] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocade_Communications_Systems ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabric_OS

Verified prefix sample (all MA-L, Brocade Communications Systems LLC)

00:05:1E, 00:60:69, 00:E0:52, 08:00:88, CC:4E:24, BC:E9:E2 [Confirmed] — local IEEE registry (enrichment/registries/oui.csv)

Security context

Brocade/Broadcom storage gear has a non-trivial CVE history. SANnav management software: 18 issues disclosed April 2024 (researcher Pierre Kim), 9 CVEs (CVE-2024-2859 .. CVE-2024-29967), incl. CVE-2024-2859 (CVSS 8.8, insecure SSH allowing unauthenticated remote root), CVE-2024-29963 (CVSS 8.6, hardcoded Docker keys in OVA images), and CVE-2024-29966 (hardcoded root credentials); fixed in SANnav v2.3.1. Fabric OS has multiple CVEs over the years (e.g. CVE-2020-10188, CVE-2021-27797, CVE-2022-33186, CVE-2023-3454, CVE-2024-5460/5461/7516) spanning command injection, credential exposure, DoS, and RCE chains. Because SAN switches sit at the core of storage fabrics, the management interface (SANnav/Web Tools) is the primary attack surface; patching cadence matters. [Confirmed] — https://www.securityweek.com/vulnerabilities-expose-brocade-san-appliances-switches-to-hacking/ ; https://pierrekim.github.io/blog/2024-04-24-brocade-sannav-18-vulnerabilities.html

IANA reference

none (OUI vendor entry; no IANA registry applies) — left blank intentionally

Related vendors

Broadcom Inc. (current parent; owns the SAN/FC lines), Extreme Networks (acquired the data-center Ethernet switching/routing business, 2018), Arris International (acquired Ruckus Wireless), Foundry Networks (acquired by Brocade 2008; contributed the Ethernet/router lines) [Confirmed] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brocade_Communications_Systems

Analyst note

A Brocade OUI is a strong indicator of enterprise SAN (Fibre Channel) infrastructure — switches and directors connecting servers to storage arrays. The brand is now Broadcom-owned (2017) and still active for FC; Ethernet/campus lines moved to Extreme Networks. Legacy hardware running unpatched Fabric OS or SANnav has a meaningful CVE surface. A Brocade OUI outside a data-center / storage-networking context is unusual and worth verifying.