Features - Storage Innovations:

RHAPSODY NETWORKS AND INCIPIENT ANNOUNCE COLLABORATION

Rhapsody Networks, a leading provider of intelligent fabric application switching platforms and Incipient Inc, a leading storage software innovator, recently announced that they are working together to deliver breakthrough technology for improving data availability and manageability in storage networks on the industry's first intelligent fabric application switch.

Specifically, the companies are combining their respective industry leading technologies to provide customers with common storage management services running in Rhapsody's intelligent fabric application switches in the network. By providing a common, distributed software model to manage the range of storage, hosts and devices distributed in the storage area network (SAN), the cost and complexity of managing SANs is greatly reduced. Additionally, freeing host and storage resources from planned and unplanned downtime significantly increases the availability of those resources.

"Enterprise Storage Group has advocated putting intelligent services into the fabric," said Nancy Marrone, senior analyst at Enterprise Storage Group. "Rhapsody and Incipient are delivering on that model, providing customers with a solution that should enhance the performance and scalability of storage services."

"With the introduction of Rhapsody's intelligent fabric application switches, there is a new opportunity for customers to break the paradigm of using a diverse set of host and array-based tools to manage a wide range of storage services across the SAN," said Ric Calvillo, CEO of Incipient Inc. "We saw a need for a totally new, distributed software model in order to provide the performance, scalability and availability when scaling across an increasing number of devices in the storage network. It is for that reason we selected Rhapsody as a great complement to our software vision and are enthusiastic about the resulting customer benefits."

"As a company unrestrained by legacy technology, Incipient has been able to design their software architecture from the ground up to embrace the new requirements for distributing intelligence in the storage network. The result is a design that provides the highest levels of manageability, performance, availability and cost effectiveness for functions such as SAN-wide data migrations," said Mike Klayko, CEO of Rhapsody Networks. "As one of our earliest technology partners, Incipient has helped shape our vision for the future of enterprise storage management, and we look forward to the future expansion of our relationship," added Klayko.

About Incipient Inc

Based in Waltham, MA, Incipient Inc delivers data storage software that runs on intelligent storage network devices. This software enables complex enterprise storage area networks (SANs) to be more reliable, scalable, manageable, and faster than ever before. For additional information, please email info@incipient.com, visit the company Web site at www.incipient.com or call 781-906-3501.

About Rhapsody Networks

Rhapsody Networks is a provider of intelligent storage networking products that reduce the complexity and cost of managing corporate information. Rhapsody products are based on patent-pending XPath technology, which provides unprecedented scalability and flexibility for the management of enterprise storage area networks. On November 5, 2002, Brocade Communications Systems Inc announced its intention to acquire Rhapsody Networks.

Contact: Larry Sennett of Rhapsody Networks, 415-272-6689, lsennett@hemisphereinc.com.