"It's more like financing or leasing equipment but you can terminate capacity if you don't need it," says Joe Pucciarelli, program director of technology financial and executive strategies at IDC. "It's an open ended rental option."

It maps to cloud IT infrastructures where capacity peaks and valleys are more volatile and load requirement is much less predictable, Pucciarelli says. Customers can subscribe for additional capacity to meet peaks and then step down capacity as those peaks diminish.

Citing IDC data, Brocade says public and private clouds will become a $1.4 billion market this year.

Pucciarelli says other major IT vendors and Brocade competitors, like , IBM and HP, offer similar procurement options but they may come with strings attached, like unattractive fees if network capacity needs to be reduced or equipment returned.

"They don't allow for interim adjustments," Pucciarelli says. "If they do, there are a lot of fees involved."