Combination of Industry's First 2 Gbit/sec Core Fabric Switch
with Hitachi Freedom Storage Systems Delivers Storage Scalability, True
High Availability, and Lowered Total Cost of Ownership
SAN JOSE, California and SANTA CLARA, California, April 22, 2002 — Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade®) (Nasdaq: BRCD), the world's leading provider of infrastructure for Storage Area Networks (SANs), and Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), announced today that Brocade SilkWorm® 12000 Core Fabric Switch is now available worldwide from Hitachi Data Systems. The SilkWorm 12000 is the industry's first 2 Gigabit per Second (Gbit/sec), modular, multi-protocol core fabric switch designed to support the unique demands of enterprise storage applications and services. When combined with Hitachi Freedom Storage™ Lightning 9900™ Series and Hitachi Freedom Storage Thunder 9200™ systems, customers can scale storage more effectively, support continuous data availability, and reduce the overall cost of storage management. With the addition of the SilkWorm 12000, Hitachi Data Systems now offers a full range of Brocade storage networking products.
"We chose to work with Hitachi Data Systems in order to improve the performance and functionality of our existing Fibre Channel storage environment," said Bob Sibley, responsible for Data Center Technology Strategy for HBoS (the new company resulting from the merger of Halifax Bank and the Bank of Scotland). "The combination of the Lightning 9960 with SilkWorm 12000 fabric switches has enabled us to manage our rapidly escalating storage needs more easily, while providing significant cost savings over our previous solution."
Available in 64-port and 128-port configurations, the SilkWorm 12000 expands the capabilities of existing Fibre Channel storage environments and is extensible to support both IP and emerging InfiniBand networks. Building on the proven Brocade intelligent SAN infrastructure, the Brocade SilkWorm 12000 raises the bar for performance, functionality, flexibility, and information availability in the networked storage environment.
"We are pleased to expand our relationship with Hitachi Data Systems to make available the industry's only 2 Gbit/sec, modular fabric switch designed to network true high availability enterprise storage environments," said Jay Kidd, Vice President of Product Marketing at Brocade. "The SilkWorm 12000 enables customers to manage and scale storage more effectively, assure continuous data availability, and reduce the overall cost of storage management. Using the SilkWorm 12000 as the intelligent storage networking platform, the Hitachi Freedom Storage environment can now deliver more efficient management of information resources."
"SANs have become a strategic part of the IT infrastructure. To meet our enterprise customers requirements for scalability and availability, we are pleased to offer the SilkWorm 12000 worldwide," said Marlene Woodworth, Vice President of Global Marketing at Hitachi Data Systems. "The combination of best-of-breed products from Brocade and Hitachi Data Systems offers quantifiable return on investment, and also protects infrastructure investments with the ability to support emerging protocols and technologies in a robust, manageable solution."
Hitachi Data Systems is a leading supplier of storage hardware, software, solutions and services. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), Japan's largest electronics company, HDS is committed to providing the technological infrastructure for the world's most information-intensive corporations. With 2,600 employees, Hitachi Data Systems does business in the public and private sectors in 170 countries and regions on six continents, including the rapidly emerging economies in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. Its customers include more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies, and all of the major Storage Service Providers (SSPs). For more information, please visit the HDS Web site at www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 2000 (ended March 31, 2001) consolidated sales of 8,417 billion yen ($67.9 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.com/.
Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) offers the industry's leading intelligent platform for networking storage. The world's leading systems, applications, and storage vendors have selected Brocade to provide a networking foundation for their SAN solutions. The Brocade SilkWorm® family of fabric switches and software is designed to optimize data availability and storage and server resources in the 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. For more information, visit the Brocade website at www.brocade.com or contact the company at info@brocade.com.
Contacts: PR
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970.1050, mailto:jodi.reinman@hds.com
Fenella Tigner, Brocade, (408) 392.6843, mailto:ftigner@brocade.com
Bill Murphy, Brocade, (408) 487.8022, mailto:investor-relations@brocade.com
Jodi Baumann, Benjamin/Weber Shandwick, (415) 352.2628 x137, mailto:jbaumann@webershandwick.com
At an exchange rate of 124 yen to the dollar.
Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd. Freedom Storage, Lightning 9900, Thunder 9200, and HiCommand are trademarks of Hitachi Data Systems. Brocade, the B weave logo and SilkWorm are registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States 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. All products, plans, and dates are subject to change without notice.
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