Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

LEADING EUROPEAN FINANCIAL COMPANY SELECTS SANavigator

McDATA Corporation, an expert provider of multi-capable storage networking solutions, announced that BHW, specializing in real estate financing deals throughout Europe, has standardized their corporate storage network on McDATA software and hardware. McDATA's SANavigator storage management software and Intrepid Director have been deployed in BHW's two data centers in Hameln, Germany.

Exceptional storage needs, with growth rates as high as 325 percent, caused scalability difficulties for the BHW storage system. To consolidate both server and storage assets, the company developed strict requirements for the deployment of two storage area networks (SANs). Objectives included high availability, scalability, connectivity, flexibility, efficiency and simplified administration. In addition, BHW wanted to integrate both its mainframe and open systems environments to make information more accessible and administration easier.

BHW deployed McDATA's Intrepid Directors in each of its two data centers, and, after considering other leading SAN management products, selected McDATA's SANavigator to oversee their storage fabrics.

"Thanks to the McDATA Directors, we've been able to implement a highly available SAN infrastructure to meet our growing storage requirements," said Alexander Terence McLaren, head of IT operation/central systems at BHW. "Not only are we meeting today's needs in a flexible, reliable, efficient and cost-effective way, we'll be able to achieve these results as we scale up our SANs."

According to Ronald Scholz, BHW system programmer, the software "was the most impressive in a direct competition with other products. The clear graphic user interface enables the admin to see the real time status of the whole SAN at one glimpse. Moreover, SANavigator carries out important reporting tasks. We can configure our system to automatically create reports and we can generate reports by just pressing a button any time in order to clarify important issues. SANavigator simplifies many SAN management tasks and routines and therefore eliminates many possible errors."

Benefits of the McDATA deployment include a SAN infrastructure that keeps up with BHW's constantly growing storage requirements. Administration hours have been reduced. Storage allocation is flexible and economical. SANavigator provides visibility into the BHW storage network, and eliminates older, less efficient processes such as attempting to manage storage through the use of spreadsheets.

About McDATA

McDATA is the expert provider of Multi-Capable Storage Networking Solutions -- hardware, software and services -- that enable partners and customers around the world to reduce the total cost of storage management today, and be ready to adapt to the real-time information demands of tomorrow. Entrenched in over 8,000 data centers worldwide, McDATA solutions are at the heart of more than 80 percent of Fortune 100 storage network data centers, powering the latest e-business applications, customer databases, financial traffic and other mission-critical data. Customers leverage McDATA's multi-capable solutions to realize immediate cost savings, reduce their investment risk, ensure the continuity of their operations and adapt to changing business requirements.