Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

BROCADE EXPANDS STORAGE NETWORKING MARKET SHARE

Brocade Communications Systems Inc (Brocade), a leading provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), announced recently that Gartner has reaffirmed the company's leadership in the SAN infrastructure market in its recently released Gartner Dataquest report(1). In the May publication of the Gartner Magic Quadrant report(2) on SAN Fibre Channel Switches, the analyst firm listed Brocade in the leaders quadrant among SAN switching providers, based on Gartner's criteria of market performance, vision, and ability to execute. This is the second year that Brocade has achieved leaders quadrant positioning in the highly respected Magic Quadrant.

In addition, according to Gartner Dataquest's report regarding Storage Network Infrastructure: Fibre Channel SAN Component Market Share, 2002, Brocade expanded its leadership position in the SAN infrastructure market again in 2002, gaining share of the SAN switching market -- which includes Fibre Channel directors, core fabric switches, and fabric switches -- to achieve 59 percent total market share.

"Having a partner relationship with our key vendors is very important to us, because we want to share our ideas and help to shape product improvements," said Michelle Butler, Technical Program Manager, Storage Enabling Technologies, National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA). "We chose Brocade because they welcome partner relationships with their customers. As a result, we've gotten features and functionality that are very important to us. For example, Data security is a key issue here at NCSA, and for that reason, we look forward to getting advanced security features from Brocade in the near future, including the ability to lock down ports and implement security authentication levels."

"When we decided to install a SAN, we looked at Brocade as well as its competitors. We chose Brocade because it offered the best technology to TCO ratio and a wide range of user-friendly fabric management tools. After four years, our Brocade switches are the only devices in the Ferrari IT infrastructure which have never failed," said Alessandro Sala, IT Architectural Manager, Ferrari-Maserati Group.

"These reports highlight our commitment to exceed our customers' expectations by providing cost-effective solutions that simplify storage management, while enabling them to do more with less and leverage existing IT investments," said Michael Klayko, Brocade Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Support. "We are pleased to have Gartner substantiate Brocade's expanded leadership position in the storage networking market."

(1) Gartner Dataquest, "Storage Network Infrastructure: FC SAN Component Market Share, 2002," James Opfer, May 6, 2003

(2) Gartner, "Magic Quadrant for SAN Fibre Channel Switches," Nick Allen and Bob Passmore, May 1, 2003