Quarterly Summary (Schedule of Quarterly Financial Information) (Details) - USD ($) $ / shares in Units, shares in Thousands, $ in Thousands	3 Months Ended										12 Months Ended
	Oct. 31, 2015	Aug. 01, 2015	May. 02, 2015	[1]	Jan. 31, 2015	Nov. 01, 2014	Aug. 02, 2014	May. 03, 2014		Jan. 25, 2014	Oct. 31, 2015	Nov. 01, 2014		Oct. 26, 2013
Selected Quarterly Financial Information
Net revenues	$ 588,827	$ 551,819	$ 546,575		$ 576,239	$ 564,358	$ 545,464	$ 536,910	[1]	$ 564,535	$ 2,263,460	$ 2,211,267		$ 2,222,864
Gross margin	394,277	371,904	372,209		389,683	377,118	361,713	354,292	[1]	372,670	1,528,073	1,465,793		1,408,879
Income from operations	119,221	119,849	114,205		139,405	126,530	117,897	20,195	[1]	121,490	$ 492,680	$ 386,112		$ 308,483
Net income (loss)	$ 84,388	$ 91,667	$ 77,040		$ 87,267	$ 83,419	$ 87,352	$ (13,684)	[1]	$ 80,884
Net income (loss) per-share—basic	$ 0.20	$ 0.22	$ 0.18		$ 0.20	$ 0.19	$ 0.20	$ (0.03)	[1]	$ 0.18	$ 0.81	$ 0.55		$ 0.46
Net income (loss) per-share—diluted	$ 0.20	$ 0.21	$ 0.18		$ 0.20	$ 0.19	$ 0.20	$ (0.03)	[1]	$ 0.18	$ 0.79	$ 0.53		$ 0.45
Shares used in per share calculation—basic	414,769	417,299	420,718		428,536	431,843	432,448	436,167	[1]	440,573	420,331	435,258		450,516
Shares used in per share calculation—diluted	422,315	427,518	433,234		439,156	441,649	441,789	436,167	[1]	453,549	430,556	446,859		463,705
Brocade Price Per Share High	$ 11.28	$ 12.88	$ 12.96		$ 12.43	$ 10.99	$ 9.75	$ 10.96	[1]	$ 9.70
Brocade Price Per Share Low	$ 9.72	$ 9.67	$ 10.85		$ 10.66	$ 8.91	$ 7.95	$ 8.81	[1]	$ 7.77
Quarterly Financial Information, Explanatory Disclosure												The quarter ended May 3, 2014, includes the impact of an $83.4 million impairment of goodwill in the Company’s Application Delivery Products reporting unit.
Quarterly Financial Information, Explanatory Note, Period								The quarter ended May 3, 2014
Goodwill impairment charge											$ 0	$ 83,382	[2]	$ 0

[1] The quarter ended May 3, 2014, includes the impact of an $83.4 million impairment of goodwill in the Company’s Application Delivery Products reporting unit.

[2] In the second quarter of fiscal year 2014, the Company made a strategic change in the allocation of its engineering resources by reducing its investment in engineering and sales for the hardware-based Brocade ADX products and increasing engineering investment in the software-based Brocade ADX products for Layer 4-7 applications. As a result of this change in strategy, the Company expected hardware-based Brocade ADX and related support revenue to be negatively impacted. Based on these changes in estimates, the Company recognized an impairment charge during the second fiscal quarter of 2014 because the book value of its Application Delivery Products (“ADP”) reporting unit net assets, which includes the Brocade ADX products, exceeded the estimated fair value of these assets. The goodwill amount related to the Company’s other reporting units was not impacted.