World’s largest enterprise software company relies on McDATA for its storage network infrastructure

BROOMFIELD, Colo. – Oct. 7, 2002 – McDATA® Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA/MCDT), the worldwide leader in open, ultra high availability storage networking solutions, today announced that Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) has joined the world’s leading technology companies by selecting McDATA as its storage area network (SAN) provider.

With the need to gain control of skyrocketing IT costs and to simplify the maintenance of IT business operations, Oracle embarked on one of the most aggressive consolidation efforts in high-tech history. Oracle’s new e-business infrastructure, based on McDATA SAN technology, serves as one of the largest global IT implementations supporting over 43,000 users worldwide. To accomplish that consolidation, Oracle deployed an ultra high-availability McDATA SAN in each of its two data centers to ensure constant access to its mission-critical information and simplified management of its storage infrastructure.

McDATA is the storage network vendor of choice for the world’s most technology-savvy enterprises, including IBM Global Services, EMC, Hewlett-Packard Company, VERITAS Software and Cisco Systems.

“Oracle chose McDATA because of its superior technology and experience in the data centers of the world’s largest companies. The McDATA SAN solution delivers constant availability, easy management and seamless scalability for Oracle’s storage infrastructure,” said Mitchell McGovern, vice president Oracle Global Data Center Operation. “From a financial perspective, leveraging the EMC/McDATA networked storage solution has helped Oracle achieve its milestone objective of cutting corporate costs by over $1 billion.”

Oracle’s McDATA storage network, re-branded by EMC as the Connectrix™ family of products, delivers unrivaled data networking with industry-leading flexibility, scalability, simplicity and reliability.

Oracle consolidated more than 100 worldwide data centers into two locations, one in Redwood Shores, Calif., and another in Colorado Springs, Colo. The McDATA storage networks supporting Oracle’s dual data centers consist of nearly 400 ultra-high availability Intrepidä 6000 Series Director ports. Managing those fabrics is McDATA’s SAN management software, part of its EON (Extendable Open Networking) architecture suite.

Oracle required the industry’s highest levels of availability, simplified management and seamless scalability as it transitioned from direct-attached to networked storage. McDATA was the only storage network vendor that could satisfy those requirements. McDATA Intrepid Directors are deployed in the majority of the world’s data centers because of their ultra high availability (99.999 percent uptime); ability to handle both mainframe (FICON) and open systems (Fibre Channel) data traffic; non-disruptive code load and activation capabilities (McDATA’s HotCATä Technology); and their support for emerging technologies such as 10Gb/s, iSCSI, FCIP and InfiniBand. The result is increases in investment protection, security, ROI, business continuity and technology integration.

“The most tech-knowledgeable companies in the world – Cisco, VERITAS, IBM Global Services, EMC, HP – all trust their most critical storage infrastructures to McDATA,” said McDATA President and Chief Executive Officer John Kelley. “No other storage networking vendor in the world can match McDATA’s legacy of innovation, industry expertise and solid reputation as a company that operates with integrity. That’s why industry leaders such as Oracle select McDATA.”

About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)
McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA/MCDT) is the worldwide leader in open, ultra high availability 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.

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, our ability to quickly ramp SANavigator sales, our relationships with EMC Corporation and IBM and the level of their orders, the impact of the continued general economic slowdown 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, our ability to expand sales into higher margin channels through system integrators and distributors, a loss of any of our key customers (or our OEMs’ key customers), distributors, resellers or our contract manufacturer, our ability to expand our product offerings and any transition to new products (such as higher port count products) and OEM qualification of such new products which may occur after the general availability dates, possible inventory charges that may occur with any transition to such new products, component quality and availability, the impact and uncertainty of typically having most of the sales volume occur in the last month and a significant amount in the last two weeks of the fiscal quarter, the development of the storage area network and director, switch and software markets, competition in the storage area network and director, switch and software markets (including competitive pricing pressures), one-time events and other important risk factors disclosed previously and from time to time in our filings at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 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.