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Nishan Systems/StorageTek Qualify IP Sto Switches for SN6000

Nishan Systems, the world's first supplier of native IP storage solutions, and StorageTek (Storage Technology Corp), the storage services and solutions expert, have jointly qualified Nishan's IP Storage switches for interoperability with StorageTek's SN6000, certain disk products and data replication software. Specific guidelines for supported configurations are available from both StorageTek and Nishan Systems. The qualified solutions enable customers to use more available and affordable IP network infrastructures for a variety of business-critical storage applications, including remote tape vaulting, storage consolidation and disaster recovery.

The StorageTek StorageNet 6000 (SN6000) uses a breakthrough architecture that enables seamless, scalable and highly efficient management of tape storage resources. When combined with the SN6000's Virtual Transport Manager (VTM) and Tape Mirroring software, the result is the core of a virtual tape solution that delivers a unique combination of utilization, reliability, and scalability benefits, allowing customers to more effectively manage more data.

StorageTek disk arrays qualified with Nishan include the D-Series products, which scale to over 32 terabytes of storage capacity. The Nishan qualification for the StorageTek D-Series products also includes StorageTek Remote Volume Mirror (RVM) software for synchronous disk-to-disk data replication.

Nishan IP Storage switches provide customers with access to broad bandwidth at high speeds and low latencies for their storage traffic. Using a portion of their existing IP network bandwidth or separate IP networks for storage, customers can implement economical high-performance remote storage networks. Nishan's exclusive SAN Internetworking intelligence provides non-disruptive connectivity between storage devices over virtually any distance.

"Nishan IP storage switches provide a very flexible, high-performance solution for extending the reach of our SN6000 and StorageTek disk arrays," said Tim Steadman, StorageTek Director, Corporate Alliances. "Our SN6000 customers need the ability to cost-effectively deploy remote tape vaulting and data continuity solutions over distance using mainstream IP network services. The combined StorageTek/Nishan solution enables our customers to implement enterprise-wide storage strategies."

"The Nishan qualification with the StorageTek SN6000 and D-Series disk arrays will provide our common customers with a highly scalable and affordable solution," remarked Mark Hicks, Vice President of Business Development at Nishan Systems. "Combining StorageTek's best-in-class tape and disk products with Nishan's best-in-class IP storage switches enables customers to implement robust disaster recovery and remote tape vaulting solutions while reducing their total cost of ownership. We are excited to be working with StorageTek to deliver these qualified solutions to our customers."

The combined StorageTek D-Series disk array and Nishan IP storage switch solution enables customers to implement cost-effective disaster recovery solutions over virtually any distance. StorageTek's Remote Volume Mirror (RVM) product provides synchronous data replication from disk to disk. Nishan IP storage switches are optimized for long haul data replication applications while providing fault isolation between primary and secondary sites.

About Nishan Systems

Nishan Systems, the world's first supplier of native IP Storage solutions, builds open storage networking products based on IP and Ethernet, the international networking standards. Nishan's Multi-protocol Storage framework supports iSCSI, iFCP, iSNS, Fibre Channel, and all types of Network-Attached Storage (NAS) interfaces. The highly reliable and manageable IP Storage fabric extends seamlessly from the data center to the metro area and beyond. Nishan's products are fully compatible with the millions of LAN, MAN, and WAN routers and switches already installed and mastered by IT professionals. Nishan Systems has been named to top company rankings in Computerworld, Red Herring Magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle, and Nishan's IP Storage switches recently received the InfoWorld Readers' Choice Award for best new storage products. Nishan Systems, a full voting member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), is based in San Jose, California, and can be reached at www.NishanSystems.com, and at 408-519-3700.

About StorageTek

StorageTek, a $2 billion worldwide company with headquarters in Louisville, Colo., delivers a broad range of storage solutions that are easy to manage, integrate well with existing infrastructures and allow universal access to data across servers, media types and networks. StorageTek provides practical and safe storage solutions in disk, networking, services, tape and tape automation. For more information, see www.storagetek.com, or call 800-786-7835.

Contact: Bob Wientzen, Sr. Public Relations Manager of StorageTek, 303-661-4993, bob_wientzen@storagetek.com.