Features - Storage Innovations:

HITACHI ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF MCDATA'S 6140 AND 4500

McDATA Corporation, a worldwide leader in open, ultra-high availability storage networking solutions, has announced the worldwide availability of McDATA's entire core-to-edge family of storage networking solutions, including its Sphereon 4500 Fabric Switch and Intrepid 6140 Director, through Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. As part of an existing reseller agreement, McDATA's newest products are now available with Hitachi Freedom Storage Series systems, allowing Hitachi Data Systems' customers to enjoy industry-leading flexibility, investment protection and ultra-high availability.

"Hitachi Data Systems is pleased to work with McDATA to provide our customers with this end-to-end SAN infrastructure solution," said Scott Genereux, vice president, Global Marketing and Business Development for Hitachi Data Systems. "Working closely with partners is part of our TrueNorth strategy to continue to meet our customers' demands for flexible and cost-effective storage networking solutions. We look forward to continuing our successful relationship with McDATA and delivering complete networked storage solutions to our customers."

Companies that already have implemented the Sphereon 4500 Fabric Switch and Intrepid 6140 Director into their storage infrastructures have reported the following benefits:

• Business continuance goals met or exceeded;
• Maximized ROI;
• Improved resource utilization;
• Flexible and scalable solutions;
• Simple, fast deployment;
• Unparalleled reliability.

The Sphereon 4500 and Intrepid 6140 Director surpass all solutions currently available on the market in terms of affordability, scalability and ease of use. Specifically, the Sphereon 4500 Fabric Switch is the world's most flexible and cost-effective fibre channel SAN switch. The Sphereon 4500 is designed from the ground up to address the needs of small-to-medium enterprises and can be readily expanded to meet future needs. Similarly, the Intrepid 6140 Director is the industry's only 140 port, 2 Gb/s Director, providing maximum resource utilization without compromising future flexibility and overall ROI.

"The Sphereon 4500 and the Intrepid 6140 Director, combined with our relationships with partners such as Hitachi Data Systems, extend McDATA's ability to address our customers' requirements and provide them with the absolute maximum value in both technology and service. More specifically, the Sphereon 4500 compliments Hitachi Data Systems' new Thunder 9500 modular storage array by offering HDS customers a means to add storage and port capacity on demand, without disruption to their business," said McDATA senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Mike Gustafson. "To that end, we continue to define, enable and accelerate our customers' migration to an intelligent infrastructure."

About McDATA

McDATA is a world leader in open, ultra-high availability storage networking solutions and provides highly available, scalable and centrally managed storage area networks (SANs) that address enterprise-wide storage problems. McDATA's core-to-edge enterprise SAN solutions improve the reliability and availability of data to simplify SAN management and reduce the total cost of ownership. McDATA extensively pre-tests its solutions to provide IT organizations with the comprehensive tools, methodologies and support essential to robust SAN implementation. McDATA distributes its products through its OEMs, network of resellers and Elite Solution Partners. McDATA and the McDATA logo are registered trademarks of McDATA Corporation.