Features - Storage Innovations:

McDATA AND AppIQ ADVANCE CIM TO BRING TRUE INTEROPERABILITY

McDATA Corporation, a worldwide leader in open, ultra-high availability storage networking solutions, and AppIQ, leading the open management revolution in storage management software, announced recently that the two companies are working together to accelerate delivery of the Common Information Model (CIM). McDATA has enrolled in AppIQ's CIMIQ Partner Program, and AppIQ is one of the first members of McDATA's OpenReady Developer Program. The two companies will be demonstrating a functionally complete CIM implementation in the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) CIM-SAN interoperability lab at Storage Networking World (SNW) in April.

"CIM represents the most compelling delivery mechanism for open management in today's multi-vendor heterogeneous environments, and also promises to break down the barriers to SAN deployment," said John McArthur, group vice president for storage research at IDC. "Collaborations on CIM development like the one announced today by McDATA and AppIQ quicken the transition to standards, and I applaud the efforts the two companies are making to provide greater value to customers."

Using McDATA's enhanced application programming interfaces (APIs), the new CIM interface will demonstrate rich functionality for McDATA Intrepid Directors and Sphereon Fabric Switches that encompasses active provisioning, event management, modeling and reporting.

"McDATA is leveraging AppIQ's unique expertise in CIM interface development to deliver open standards more expediently to our customers," said Peter Dougherty, McDATA's vice president of business development and strategic alliances. "McDATA recognizes the value CIM delivers to customers, and will continue to drive its widespread adoption."

The new interface was first demonstrated at the "plugfest" hosted by the SNIA in February and will also play a significant role in the upcoming CIM-SAN-2 demonstration at SNW in April. At this event, AppIQ will be demonstrating this CIM implementation with its AppIQ Solution Suite. Additionally, the two companies will work together to validate the interface.

"CIM-SAN offers the most significant evidence of the value customers receive when they operate a standards-managed SAN by demonstrating comprehensive application-integrated storage infrastructure management in a simulated heterogeneous production environment," said Doug Cahill, vice president of business development and strategy for AppIQ. "We are pleased to have the opportunity to join with McDATA to further CIM's success."

About CIMIQ

CIMIQ is a software development platform and testing toolset enabling accelerated deployment of CIM/WBEM/Storage Management Specification-compliant products. CIMIQ is being marketed through the CIMIQ Partner Program to independent hardware and software vendors looking to shorten development cycles and reduce the costs associated with developing CIM-compliant products. Vendors that need to acquire CIM technology, as well as those with their own CIM products, can benefit from the tools available with CIMIQ. By offering CIMIQ to the marketplace, AppIQ is giving other vendors the opportunity to leverage its early development efforts while broadening device support for AppIQ Solution Suite and advancing standards-based solutions for customers.

About AppIQ

AppIQ Inc is leading a revolution in open management. AppIQ Solution Suite is the first standards-built solution to simplify the management of complex storage environments for IT professionals in enterprises of all sizes. Reduced complexity is achieved by managing the infrastructure as a system, integrating business applications and implementing open industry standards. The result is an easy-to-deploy and simple-to-use solution that provides more efficient use of existing assets, increased application availability, and quicker deployment of storage infrastructure and business applications. AppIQ has delivered enabling technology based on industry standards to a number of partners to further the rapid adoption of standards in the storage industry.

AppIQ is also an active participant in leading industry standards groups including the Distributed Management Task Force Inc (DMTF) and the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). Investors in AppIQ include Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. Contact AppIQ at announce@appiq.com, 781-425-6260 or visit www.appiq.com for more information.

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.