9th May 2000 — Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (BROCADE®) (Nasdaq: BRCD), the leading supplier of Fibre Channel fabric solutions for Storage Area Networking, and Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT) announced today that the two companies have formed a worldwide alliance in which Hitachi Data Systems will resell the BROCADE SilkWorm® 2400 and 2800 Fibre Channel fabric switches to provide a scalable networking foundation for Hitachi storage area network (SAN) solutions. BROCADE SilkWorm switches are available now for sale to Hitachi Data Systems customers.
This agreement complements BROCADE's existing partnership with Hitachi Data Systems Canada and expands the reach of BROCADE products through Hitachi to more than 30 countries. The award-winning BROCADE SilkWorm® family of Fibre Channel switches and software connects servers with storage devices through a Fibre Channel SAN, enabling companies to access and share storage in a high-performance, manageable, and scalable environment.
"Making BROCADE solutions available to Hitachi Data Systems customers worldwide expands the range of choices for our customers and further emphasizes our vision of offering SAN solutions that are completely open," said Hu Yoshida, Hitachi Data Systems vice president for data networking solutions. "Our OpenSAN strategy provides customers a choice in selecting the combination of SAN components that best meets their specific business objectives. It assures they will have full interoperability testing and support, while also offering cost-effective and efficient solutions for the management and administration of storage throughout their enterprises."
Hitachi Data Systems is a leading worldwide provider of enterprise-wide information management. Through Hitachi Freedom Data Networks (FDN) — an open architecture for SANs and other network solutions — Hitachi provides freedom of choice in establishing data-centric enterprise networks. FDN solutions enable Hitachi customers to consolidate server and storage resources, share data among heterogeneous hosts, and centralize resource and data management - all in a highly secure, networked storage environment.
Hitachi Data Systems will also leverage its significant investment in its dedicated Interoperability Lab (I-Lab) to offer integration, interoperability, and demonstration capabilities for a wide array of SAN configurations over the BROCADE SilkWorm switches. The I-Lab is one of the largest facilities of its kind in the U.S., helping Hitachi deliver pre-defined, interoperable SAN solutions quickly to its customers.
"With the tremendous market growth and demand for BROCADE products worldwide, we are delighted that our products will now be available with Hitachi Data Systems SAN solutions around the world," said Peter Tarrant, BROCADE vice president of marketing and business development. "BROCADE's reliable and scalable storage networking foundation is an ideal complement to Hitachi's approach to delivering best-in-class SAN solutions for the enterprise."
Hitachi Data Systems has been aggressively building its OpenSAN initiative since April of last year. Through OpenSAN, the company and its alliance partners such as BROCADE, provide four key SAN components: storage systems such as Hitachi Freedom Storage™; interconnect devices; host bus adapters; and central management software. The Hitachi Freedom Storage 7700E and 5800 family of SAN-enabled products provides high-performance, high-availability data storage across heterogeneous computing environments.
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Committed to helping customers exploit the value of information technology for success in the Internet economy, Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), is a leading provider of business solutions for the world's most information-intensive corporations. For further information on Hitachi Data Systems, access www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 1998 (ended March 31, 1999) consolidated sales of 7,977 billion yen ($65.9 billion). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://www.hitachi.co.jp/.
¹ At an exchange rate of 124 yen to the dollar.
BROCADE (Nasdaq: BRCD) is the leading supplier of open Fibre Channel fabric solutions that provide the intelligent backbone for Storage Area Networks (SANs). The BROCADE SilkWorm® family of Fibre Channel switches and software is designed to optimize data availability in the storage 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 and performance. For more information, visit the BROCADE website or contact the company at info@brocade.com.
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Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. Freedom Storage is a trademark of Hitachi Data Systems. BROCADE, SilkWorm, SilkWorm Express, Fabric Integrator, Fabric OS, Fabric Weaver, and QuickLoop are trademarks or registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems Incorporated, in the United States and/or in other countries. All other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of, and are used to identify, products or services of their respective owners.
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