General Dynamics selected Brocade for the Fort Carson network upgrade through the Army's Installation Information Infrastructure Modernization Program, dubbed I3MP.

"Brocade is a preferred OEM provider for General Dynamics' Army Solutions," Cibotti says. "They offer long-term sustainment, and that is the true value they bring to [us]."

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Tim Angelos, director of sales for the U.S. Defense Department at Brocade, says more than 50% of U.S. Army bases have Brocade routers installed and more than 80% have Brocade storage-area networking gear.

"The U.S. Army is one of our largest customers globally,'' Angelos says. "The flexibility of the Brocade design makes sense to the Army, which knows that they are going to run IPv4, IPv6 and MPLS concurrently. They don't know where and how much of each protocol they're going to need. The Brocade design supports all three protocols in hardware, so the Army can dial IPv6 or IPv4 up or down as needed with no performance impact and no additional cost associated with turning on any of those protocols."