Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

LEADING MORTGAGE LENDER STANDARDISES ON SILKWORM 12000

Brocade Communications Systems Inc (Brocade) , a leading provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), announced recently that Halifax and Bank of Scotland Group plc (HBOS) has standardized on the Brocade SilkWorm 12000 Core Fabric Switch to support its operations in the United Kingdom. As one of the largest mortgage lenders and financial services companies in Europe, HBOS has implemented a Brocade SAN infrastructure in order to create a disaster-tolerant environment for critical financial data. HBOS has deployed Brocade SilkWorm fabric switches in a dual-fabric SAN, spanning servers and storage from multiple vendors. HBOS has deployed additional Brocade-based SANs across the company, which support their 7 by 24 banking and direct insurance businesses. The HBOS networked storage solution was deployed in conjunction with Hitachi Data Systems.

"We chose the Brocade SilkWorm 12000 because it allows us to build a tremendously scalable network with unsurpassed mission critical high availability," said Bob Sibley, Data Centre Technology Manager, Group Technology for HBOS. "Deploying the latest Brocade SAN infrastructure-based SAN enables us to achieve business continuance through the implementation of dual dark fiber links between our primary data centres using Brocade Extended Fabric technology. This configuration creates a single fabric infrastructure for transparent data replication between systems and sites. The SAN has also helped us implement LAN-free backup, which has dramatically increased backup performance."

"Businesses that rely on data intensive and mission critical applications have recognized the value of implementing open, heterogeneous SANs to assure business continuity and network performance. The Brocade SilkWorm 12000 plays an essential role in delivering a reliable networking model for storage environments where scalability, interoperability, performance, availability, and reliability are crucial," said Jay Kidd, Brocade vice president of Product Marketing. "We are very pleased to have been chosen by HBOS and are pleased that the company has already seen a return on investment in business continuity, services delivery, and improved utilization of existing storage resources."

About Brocade Communications Systems Inc

Brocade offers one of the industry's leading intelligent platforms for networking storage. The world's leading systems, applications, and storage vendors have selected Brocade to provide a networking foundation for their SAN solutions. The Brocade SilkWorm family of fabric switches and software is designed to optimize data availability and storage and server resources in the enterprise. Using Brocade solutions, companies can simplify the implementation of storage area networks, reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve network and application efficiency. For more information, visit the Brocade Web site at www.brocade.com/ or contact the company at info@brocade.com.

Contact: Fenella Tigner, 408-392-6843, or ftigner@brocade.com.