Achieves Unprecedented Performance, Availability, and
Reliability, while Simplifying Storage Management
BROOMFIELD, Colorado and SANTA CLARA, California, May 29, 2002 — McDATA® Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA/MCDT), the worldwide leader in open storage networking solutions, and Hitachi Data Systems, the world's fastest growing enterprise storage provider and a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today announced that they have implemented dual Storage Area Networks (SANs) for the State of New Jersey's Office of Information Technology (OIT), one of the most sophisticated and extensive state-wide information technology networks in the United States. McDATA's full family of core-to-edge storage networking products and Hitachi Data Systems' storage solutions allow New Jersey's OIT to achieve a previously unattainable level of availability and reliability in serving individuals, businesses and state agencies in the nation's ninth most populous state.
"The OIT is responsible for the State of New Jersey's enterprise IT services," said Bruce Rosser, manager of information processing for the State of New Jersey. "Our telecommunications network, the largest private network in the state, spans the entire length and width of New Jersey, meeting the telecommunications needs of more than hundreds facilities. We needed to deploy dual McDATA SANs from Hitachi Data Systems because the OIT required a single storage pool for the state agencies it serves, and we also wanted to be able to serve as an ASP (Application Service Provider) for these agencies. Dual SANs have allowed OIT to consolidate and share storage resources. The office is seeing considerably faster data transfer, and higher reliability and availability, which were key elements since so much of our stored data is mission-critical. We also needed simplified management of the SANs in order to control costs and optimize the state's resources."
OIT's core-to-edge SAN solution includes McDATA's Intrepid™ 6000 Series Directors, Sphereon™ 3000 Series Fabric Switches and its 1000 Series Loop Switches in? combination with Hitachi Freedom Storage™ Lightning 9900™ Series Model 9960 storage systems. Currently, OIT has 584 active McDATA ports. In the future OIT expects to add at least another 128 ports.
"The McDATA Intrepid Directors at the core of the OIT network ensure 99.999 percent uptime, while scaling equally in both performance and connectivity as devices are added or reconfigured in the fabric," said John Kelley, president and chief operating officer for McDATA. "McDATA's SAN management software offers IT managers centralized control of the storage network and provides a fabric-wide view of the entire storage network from a single console, enabling the manager to add, remove, or modify managed connectivity products. McDATA's software also provides IT managers with detailed logging, diagnostics, and rapid error source identification, with call home and email notification."
"The dual SANs we've provided help OIT to meet its rapidly growing storage requirements in every respect," said Lewis Winning, vice president, US Sales Operations, Hitachi Data Systems. "They provide any-to-any connectivity between heterogeneous servers and storage, including AIX, NT and Sun production and backup servers at OIT's two main IT facilities. Our Lightning 9960 storage systems, supported by leading technology from McDATA, allow New Jersey's OIT to provide faster and more reliable access to data on a variety of servers and to easily manage the switches, servers and other hardware from a central location. At the same time, we've helped OIT to leverage the storage efficiencies of this system to cut the cost of government."
McData (Nasdaq: MCDTA/MCDT; http://www.mcdata.com) is the worldwide leader in open storage networking solutions and provides highly available, scalable and centrally managed storage area networks (SANs) that address enterprise-wide storage problems. McDATA's core-to-edge enterprise SAN solutions improve the reliability and availability of data to simplify SAN management and reduce the total cost of ownership. McDATA extensively pre-tests its solutions to provide IT organizations with the comprehensive tools, methodologies and support essential to robust SAN implementation. McDATA distributes its products through its OEMs, network of resellers and Elite Solution Partners. McDATA and the McDATA logo are registered trademarks of McDATA Corporation.
Hitachi Data Systems, the fastest growing enterprise storage provider, 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 storage infrastructure for the world's most information-intensive corporations. With 2,600 employees, Hitachi Data Systems does business through direct sales and resellers in the public and private sectors in 170 countries and regions on six continents. Its customers include more than 50 percent of Fortune 100 companies. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a leading global electronics company, with approximately 320,000 employees worldwide. Fiscal 2001(ended March 31, 2002) consolidated sales totaled 7,994 billion yen ($60.1 billion*). The company offers a wide range of systems, products and services in market sectors, including information systems, electronic devices, power and industrial systems, consumer products, materials and financial services. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's Web site at www.hitachi.com.
*At an exchange rate of 133 yen to the dollar.
Contacts: PR
McDATA
Kathleen Sullivan, (303) 460-4435, cell: (720) 480-5501, kathleen.sullivan@mcdata.com
Ryan Batty, (720) 566-3934, ryan.batty@mcdata.com
Investors:
Linda Dellett, (303) 460-4474, investor_relations@mcdata.com
Jodi Reinman, Hitachi Data Systems, (408) 970.1050, jodi.reinman@hds.com
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains statements about expected future events that
are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Readers are
urged to consider statements that include the terms "believes",
"belief", "expects", "plans", "objectives", "estimates", "anticipates",
"intends", "targets", or the like to be uncertain and forward-looking.
Factors that could cause actual results to differ and vary materially
from expectations include, but are not limited to, changes in our
relationships with EMC Corporation, or EMC, and International Business
Machines Corporation, or IBM, and the level of their orders; our ability
to successfully sell SANavigator software; the impact of the general
economic slowdown and the recent terrorist attacks on purchasing
decisions by customers and capital spending; our ability to complete the
manufacturing review plan and the successful implementation of an
"outsourcing-focused" manufacturing model and the risks with having a
single contract manufacturer; additional manufacturing and component
costs and production delays that we may continue to experience as we
continue the transition to new products and multiple product lines; our
ability to expand sales into higher margin channels through systems
integrator and distributors; a loss of any of our key customers (and our
OEMs' key customers), distributors, resellers or our manufacturers; our
ability to expand our product offerings and any transition to new
products (including our transition to a 2 gigabit transmission speed
product line and higher port density products which may reduce demand
for our 1 gigabit products); the impact and uncertainty of typically
having most of our sales volume occur in the last month and a
significant amount in the week of each fiscal quarter; component quality
and availability; any change in business conditions, our sales strategy
or product development plans; competition in the storage area network
and director and switch markets (including competitive pricing
pressures); our ability to attract and retain highly skilled
individuals; continued market acceptance of our products, name
recognition of our products and changes in customer buying patterns;
delays and changes in the development of new products and new
technology; any industry or technology changes that cause obsolescence
of our products or components of those products; and one-time events and
other important risks and factors disclosed previously and from time to
time in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,
including the risk factors discussed in such filings. These cautionary
statements by us should not be construed as exhaustive or as any
admission regarding the adequacy of disclosures made by us. We cannot
always predict or determine after the fact what factors would cause
actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the
forward-looking statements or other statements. All cautionary
statements should be read as being applicable to all forward-looking
statements wherever they appear. We do not undertake any obligation to
publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a
result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Freedom Storage, Lightning 9900, and HiCommand are trademarks of Hitachi Data Systems. Product names and/or slogans mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
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