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McDATA's SANavigator NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH 175 RESELLERS

McDATA Corporation, a worldwide leader in open, ultra high-availability storage networking solutions, has announced that it has partnered with more than 175 system integrators and resellers to distribute McDATA's award-winning SANavigator storage network management software to customers throughout the world.

SANavigator greatly simplifies storage network management. SANavigator ensures that a company's storage area network (SAN) is performing optimally, as it can visualize growth and planning, simplify asset management, improve reliability, maximize resources and ensure a greater return on investment. This efficient, open-system platform provides a comprehensive, intuitive set of management tools, allowing IT administrators to optimize the capabilities of their storage networks while automating many of the day-to-day management tasks.

"McDATA's SANavigator is favored by our customers for its ease of use and its robust, total SAN management capabilities," said Dan Zehnpfennig, senior storage architect at Berbee Information Networks Corp, a leading provider of technology solutions. "SANavigator's policy engine, multi-vendor fabric management and single point of control are unrivalled in today's storage network management market."

Comparex, a leading European systems integrator of complete IT solutions, utilizes McDATA's SANavigator in a unique, dual-purpose fashion. Comparex uses SANavigator in its customer call center "SAN-Hotline" to take snapshots of its customers' storage network configurations. The information is then readily available to its call center employees, providing a detailed view of the customer's configuration. This type of information is critical to Comparex and allows the company to deliver industry-leading support to its European customers. Comparex also has had considerable success deploying SANavigator into its customers' storage infrastructures.

"Comparex relies on SANavigator both internally and externally. Our 'SAN-Hotline' uses SANavigator to better serve our customers because it gives us an easy-to-read, comprehensive snapshot of our customers' storage networks. SANavigator provides Comparex's call center with invaluable information that allows us to provide our customers with the highest possible level of support," said Dr. Sascha Vohl, director of the Comparex Core Competence Center. "SANavigator is also preferred by our customers for their own SAN management because of its ability to easily manage complex, heterogeneous storage networks from a single point of control."

With such high customer satisfaction, it is easy to understand why so many resellers are partnering with McDATA to bring SANavigator to the storage networking market. Champion Solutions Group recently deployed SANavigator to manage a McDATA/IBM SAN at Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. The IT managers at Brown & Williamson are using SANavigator to manage their fabric because of its robust discovery capabilities, intuitive graphical representations and easy-to-use management features.

"SANavigator is bringing unprecedented fabric management capabilities to Brown & Williamson. IT managers there are very pleased with SANavigator's asset management capabilities and its ability to manage their entire fabric from a single point of control," said Mark A. Wyllie, vice president and general manager, services division at Champion Solutions Group. "SANavigator delivers industry-leading storage network management to our customers around the world such as Brown & Williamson. SANavigator is an excellent value-added component to our existing product line and complements our current portfolio of products."

SANavigator 3.1 is the latest line in McDATA's suite of storage management software. SANavigator addresses the entire lifecycle of a SAN, from fabric planning and device discovery to storage network management and policy-based automation. SANavigator is another example of McDATA's commitment to providing customers technology that allows for maximum flexibility, reliability, resource optimization, and cost efficiency.

For a complete list of McDATA Elite Partners visit: www.mcdata.com/solutions/buy/si--map.html.

About McDATA

McDATA is a worldwide 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.

Contact: Linda Dellett, 720-558-4474, investor.relations@mcdata.com.