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McDATA's 24-port Sphereon 4500
brings unprecedented flexibility, functionality
to mid-range market
BROOMFIELD, Colo. October 16, 2002
McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA/MCDT), the
worldwide leader in open, ultra high-availability
storage networking solutions, today announced
the next evolution in storage networking, the
availability of the worlds most cost-effective,
flexible and feature-rich Fibre Channel SAN
switch for the mid-range market. Designed from
the ground up to address the needs of small-to-midsize
enterprises, the McDATA Sphereon 4500 Fabric
Switch delivers groundbreaking, industry-exclusive
features and capabilities previously unattainable
in the mid-range market.
The world’s only 24-port SAN switch, the
Sphereon 4500 offers the highest port density
in the industry and delivers “connectivity
on demand” in 8-port increments through
McDATA’s exclusive FlexPort Technology.
It allows small-to-midsize companies to build
scalable, reliable and easy-to-manage storage
networks with the most cost-effective SAN switch
on the market. Customers want simplicity through
management, so McDATA is packaging every Sphereon
4500 with its all-new, web-based SANpilot™
management software, which provides all the
features necessary to easily manage small SAN
fabrics.
“Our storage needs are constantly changing,
both in terms of size and technical requirements.
That's why it's absolutely critical that our
storage network is scalable, flexible and highly
reliable. We've found that McDATA, with its
Sphereon 4500 Fabric Switch, can both meet and
exceed those needs,“ said Christian Popp,
SAN Architect at BASF IT Services. "Not
only can the Sphereon 4500 be implemented without
causing disruption, but its handling and management
meet the same high standards we know from the
other McDATA devices in our network. The Sphereon
4500 provides a high level of functionality,
scalability and flexibility which is a key to
us being able to do business successfully.”
Today, with the introduction of the Sphereon
4500, McDATA provides the most robust, high
availability storage networking solutions available.
McDATA’s family of hardware and software
embody its vision of technology driven by a
customer focus, and a commitment to achieving
greater customer value.
“The 4500 rips the costs in half, bringing
high-end features to the midrange market, and
offers 'buy what you need, not what you don't’
flexibility,” said Steve Duplessie, analyst
for the Enterprise Storage Group. “What’s
not to like?”
No other Fibre Channel switch on the market
today can match the value found in the Sphereon
4500, such as:
- FlexPort Technology, which provides non-disruptive
“connectivity on demand”, in 8-port
increments;
- 24-port building block, which provides incremental
connectivity for 50-percent more connectivity
than competitive offerings, dramatically reducing
cost of ownership while assuring unparalleled
ease of scalability;
- HotCAT™, hot code load and activation,
redundant power and cooling, and hot-plug
capable transceivers, providing the highest
availability in its class;
- Industry’s highest port density: 24
ports in 1u high (1.75”) chassis, which
maximizes floor space;
- High performance, full 2Gb/s non-blocking
performance on all 24 ports with very low
latency;
- Fibre Channel and loop connectivity, which
makes it the ideal SAN switch for storage
consolidation, directly attaching disk or
tape and maximizing storage utilization.
- Single Enterprise OS (E/OS) provides a common
operating system across all McDATA Director
and Switch products, which simplifies management
for customers and delivers seamless interoperability
and backward compatibility.
McDATA expects to achieve a 30-percent share
in the mid-range fibre channel switch market,
over time. “We've factored into our market
share projections, the business problem we're
solving. Customers are concerned about cost
of ownership, consolidation, scalability and
extending intelligent networking far beyond
simple connectivity,” said Doug Rainbolt,
vice president of switch products, McDATA. “Customers
have been over-promised features that have never
been delivered. McDATA will give these customers
the options they've been looking for and enable
the seamless migration from chaos to the simplicity
of an intelligent storage infrastructure.”
Industry’s Highest Availability, Most Cost-Effective
SAN Switch - Extending McDATA’s Legacy
The Sphereon 4500 offers unprecedented value
without compromising on performance or reliability.
The Sphereon 4500 extends McDATA’s longstanding
heritage of delivering industry-leading ultra
high availability Directors and highly reliable
fabric switches, but with unprecedented cost-effectiveness
for the small-to-midsize market. No other similarly
priced Fibre Channel SAN switch on the market
today can match the Sphereon 4500’s high
availability characteristics, “pay-as-you-grow”
flexibility, port density and other standard
features.
Unrivaled Flexibility
McDATA’s exclusive FlexPort Technology
enables companies to reduce their initial SAN
investment without compromising future scalability
because the Sphereon 4500 is effectively three
products in one: It can be purchased as an entry-level
eight-port switch and upgraded with a software
license key to a 16-port and 24-port solution.
This all can be done non-disruptively and without
installing a new switch: McDATA is the world’s
only SAN switch vendor with this capability.
McDATA’s FlexPort Technology allows customers
to buy only the ports they need, with additional
connectivity “at their fingertips”
versus going through a time-consuming buy cycle.
The resulting SAN – built with a larger
24-port building block – is superior, in
terms of fabric performance, cost-effectiveness,
scalability and ease of management, than a SAN
built using smaller port count switches. Customers
gain the benefits of using bigger switches without
having to pay up front for them.
Easiest to Deploy and Manage
Included with every Sphereon 4500 at no additional
cost is McDATA’s latest SAN management
software, SANpilot, an all-new, easy-to-use,
embedded, web-accessible management tool with
a simple navigation Graphical User Interface
(GUI). SANpilot™ is a powerful, comprehensive
management software product that provides the
user with all of the necessary features to manage
small SAN fabrics, including:
- Fabric and topology views
- Zoning configuration
- Performance monitoring
- FlexPort configuration
- Health monitoring and fault isolation
- Online Help
“With the Sphereon 4500, McDATA has changed
the way companies build and deploy storage networks,”
said McDATA President and Chief Executive Officer
John Kelley. “This product delivers more
features, performance, reliability, flexibility
and cost savings than any other competitive
offering on the market today. The addition of
the Sphereon 4500 to our full family of core-to-edge
SAN solutions truly solidifies McDATA’s
place in a class of its own in the storage networking
industry and supports McDATA’s commitment
to defining, enabling and accelerating the migration
to an intelligent infrastructure… an infrastructure
where IT becomes a profit center as opposed
to a cost center.”
Availability
The McDATA Sphereon 4500 is available today
through all of McDATA’s resellers and systems
integrators. McDATA anticipates its OEMs and
master resellers, including EMC, Hitachi Data
Systems and IBM, will make the Sphereon 4500
available to their end-user customers and channel
partners, with the majority scheduled to launch
in the fourth quarter of 2002.
WHAT THE INDUSTRY IS SAYING ABOUT THE SPHEREON
4500
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center
“If we were deploying our first SAN today,
McDATA’s Sphereon 4500 is exactly what
I’d want to build it with. Its compatibility
with existing McDATA SAN products fully protects
our current investment, it’s easy to deploy
and manage, and the ‘pay-as-you-grow’
feature ensures that customers buy only what
they need,” said Bob Massengill, technical
services manager for Wake Forest University
Baptist Medical Center. “The 4500 brings
to the mid-range market the level of flexibility,
reliability and performance we’ve come
to expect from McDATA. It really is a great
product.”
Salem Group, Inc.
“As a McDATA Elite Platinum Partner, we are glad to see that
McDATA has addressed the market's arbitrated loop connectivity demand
with a more robust solution than their competitors offer. The ability
of the Sphereon 4500 to non-disruptively grow in port count with
a simple software license key is a major differentiator for McDATA
and a real benefit for customers,” said Dave Rosenblatt, VP/Connectivity
Specialist, Salem Group, Inc.
Lucent Technologies
“The Sphereon 4500 succeeds in bringing McDATA’s heritage
of delivering industry-leading, high-end features and functionality
to the small-to-midsize market. McDATA’s Sphereon 4500 will
help break the barriers to SAN adoption by enabling scalable, high
availability storage networking at an entry level price,”
said Joseph Mele, Vice President and General Manager of Lucent Technologies'
Optical Edge and Network Management Business Unit. “Through
our participation in the McDATA OPENready Interoperability Partner
Program, we plan to continue our work with McDATA to deliver solutions
that can combine the unique attributes of the Sphereon 4500 and
Lucent products to enable reliable, high performance storage networking
over distance.”
EMC
“Flexible SAN switches are essential elements in allowing
small-to-midsize customers to deploy cost-effective and scalable
storage networks,” said Paul Ross, EMC’s Director of
Networked Storage Marketing. “McDATA's Sphereon 4500 delivers
the flexibility and reliability these customers need at a very affordable
price.”
MSI Systems Integrators
“Storage area networks can provide real business benefits
in almost any IT environment,” said Phil Sauvageau, executive
vice president of products and services for MSI Systems Integrators,
based in Omaha, Neb. “The McDATA Sphereon 4500 allows small
to mid-sized IT environments the ability to implement SANs in very
manageable and cost-effective increments. McDATA's FlexPort technology
allows you to buy what you need when you need it. Its support of
loop and switched protocols allows for easy integration with both
disk and tape devices. The inclusion of the SANpilot built-in web-based
management software brings additional value by simplifying management
tasks for IT staff. Also, when it comes to addressing scalability,
the Sphereon 4500 is fully compatible with McDATA's 6000 Series
Intrepid Directors, which means customers are perfectly positioned
to leverage their investment into an enterprise-wide SAN.”
StorageTek
“Flexibility, cost-effectiveness and performance are the main
requirements small-to-mid-size enterprise customers have in their
storage networks, and McDATA’s Sphereon 4500 is designed from
the ground up to meet these needs,” said Tim Steadman, director
of corporate alliances at StorageTek. “As anOPENready Interoperability
Partner, StorageTek is closely aligned with McDATA and will continue
to deliver disk and tape based SAN solutions that are compatible
with and leverage the unique benefits of the Sphereon 4500.”
Gartner, Europe
“The pay-as-you-grow concept of McDATA's Sphereon 4500 allows
customers to optimize their investments in SANs,” said Josh
Krischer, analyst at Gartner Inc. “Unused ports in switches
are “dead capital” on which, in most of the cases, in
addition to initial investments also monthly maintenance charges
are paid. There is no reason to purchase “up-front”
capacity because of the continuous price reduction. This scheme
is similar to capacity on demand which some vendors use for servers
and storage and will help the user to cope with the tighter IT budgets.”
Hitachi Data Systems
“Hitachi Data Systems is pleased that McDATA's Sphereon 4500
is available for the SAN switch market,” said Robert Ward,
senior director, Product Management. “When combined with Hitachi
Freedom Storage Thunder 9200 systems, customers will be able to
deploy industry-leading SAN solutions easily and cost effectively
with industry leading flexibility and availability.”
Yankee Group
“McDATA's new Sphereon 4500 switch is a distinct and welcome
addition to McDATA's family of switches and directors,” said
Jamie Gruener, Senior Analyst, the Yankee Group. “This switch
is uniquely suited for small and medium-sized businesses by being
easy to manage as well as cost-effective. This announcement signifies
McDATA's aggressive new initiative into the workgroup SAN market
and well positions McDATA for growth in this market segment.”
IBM Microelectronics
“The Sphereon 4500 is based on a sophisticated IBM system-on-a-chip
ASIC that integrates more than 22 discrete chips, including the
SERDES, on to a single chip solution,” said Bruce Beers, IBM
vice president of IT marketing, IBM Microelectronics. “This
12 million gate IBM ASIC provides McDATA with cost advantages while
delivering high end features to their midrange enterprise customers.”
META Group
“Director-class features and functions incorporated within
less expensive switch solutions with simplified deployment and robust
management is driving the efficiencies and effectiveness of SAN
attached storage resources into departmental and midsize data centers,”
said Carl Greiner senior vice president, Enterprise Data Center
Strategies, META Group.
TidalWire
“The Sphereon 4500 brings TidalWire a powerful switch to meet
our customers’ requirements of flexibility, cost-effectiveness
and investment protection from their storage networks. We are pleased
to bring Sphereon technology to our reseller and integration partner
customers who work in the SMB space,” said Jeff Brandes, TidalWire
president and CEO.
Bloor Research, Europe
“McDATA's new entry level SAN products are very promising.
The capacity on demand capability of the Sphereon 4500 provides
high flexibility,” said Tony Lock, senior analyst, Bloor Research.
“Enterprises that do not need the full port count right away
can start with the number of ports that they need and scale up as
their requirements grow. In this way they can keep control of their
costs and only pay for what they need, when they need it.”
Macarthur Stroud International, Europe
“Businesses require systems that are ‘always on’.
McDATA’s new switches enable users to build high availability
storage networks across the enterprise. The scaleable range will
enable users to implement networks today that can grow to meet their
future needs,” said Hamish E. Macarthur, Macarthur Stroud
International.
Ashton, Metzler, and Associates
“Small and midsize businesses understand the limitations of
direct-attached storage, mainly in terms of the complexity of management
and the associated costs. Their challenge is two-fold: Which technologies
make sense for them and which vendors make sense for them in a world
that is rapidly changing,” said Jim Metzler, Ashton, Metzler,
and Associates. “Flexibility in a storage networking product
is essential. As is the ability to allow a customer to cost effectively
get started, allowing them to do the job today, but will allow them
to, again, cost-effectively add capacity. That's a key characteristic
of effective scalability for any SAN solution.”
META Group, Europe
“Small and medium enterprises require fibre channel based
SANs to be flexible, scalable, and reliable. IT organizations are
also looking for technologies providing clear benefits at reasonable
prices,” said Sean Derrington, Sr. Program Director with META
Group in France. “Moreover, IT organizations will benefit
from typically enterprise functions (e.g., port density, availability)
in fibre channel switches moving down market.”
Infonetics Research
“According to our research among end-users in North America,
the adoption of storage interconnection products will be the highest
among medium-sized organizations from 2002 to 2004. Products that
are low cost and flexible will lead the way in this adoption,”
said Neil Osipuk, Directing Analyst at Infonetics Research.
Evaluator Group, Inc.
“The McDATA 4500 is a very scalable and affordable fibre channel
switch solution that should be well received by Small-to-Medium
Business enterprises,” said Randy Kerns, analyst for the Evaluator
Group, Inc. “The characteristics of simple web-based management
interface to software on the switch, high performance with no compromises,
scaling of 8, 16, and 24 ports, and the redundancy and availability
characteristics seen in director-class products are right on target.”
Aberdeen Group
“SANs aren't only for the carriage trade any more,”
said Dan Tanner, Director of Storage Research at Aberdeen Group.
“Small to medium enterprise SAN adoption will increase, spurred
on by flexible, affordable, and simply manageable products like
McDATA’s Sphereon 4500.”
IDC, Europe
“Although storage networking is continuously progressing,
SANs have been perceived as costly and complex. As such, many midrange
enterprises have, so far, hesitated to move to Fibre Channel fabrics,”
says Claus Egge, Research Director IDC EMEA Storage Systems Research.
“With the Sphereon 4500's ability to allow for a pay as you
grow approach as well as its relatively dense port count, McDATA
is clearly addressing these issues. Midrange businesses are increasingly
recognizing the benefits of the improvements to reliability and
performance that Fibre Channel-based fabrics can bring. The growth
of this market midrange segment will be stimulated by the price
points and scalability of products such as the 4500.”
LSI Logic
“LSI Logic works closely with McDATA as a strategic alliance
partner to deliver industry-leading storage solutions with the performance
and scalability required for businesses ranging from entry-level
to the data center,” said Joel McGill, alliance manager, LSI
Logic Storage Systems, Inc. “As a technology leader in high
performance, highly scalable storage solutions for the open enterprise,
LSI Logic is excited that McDATA has released the Sphereon 4500
to deliver flexible and reliable connectivity to our mutual customers.”
Comparex, Europe
“Companies in the small-to-midsize enterprise category require
flexible, cost-effective storage networking solutions that will
allow them to scale with growing requirements and keep current with
emerging technologies,” said Rupert Auer, Manager Product
Marketing & Business Development at Comparex. “With the
Sphereon 4500, McDATA is able to meet these customer requirements
better than any other SAN switch vendor today.”
DataCore
“McDATA’s introduction of the Sphereon 4500 addresses
customer requirements for powerful, high availability SANs at entry-level
prices,” said Ken Horner, vice president of marketing at DataCore.
“Combined with DataCore's SANsymphony open storage networking
platform, it makes for a cost-effective move from direct-attached
storage to a consolidated and automated storage infrastructure.”
XIOtech
“The Sphereon 4500 brings high-end features and functionality
to the mid-range market. Its cost-effectiveness, flexibility and
performance will help accelerate SAN adoption among small-to-midsize
enterprises,” said Dan McCormick, vice president of worldwide
marketing for XIOtech. “XIOtech is committed to providing
businesses with cost-effective, adaptive networked storage, enabling
IT and business agility. Through our participation in the McDATA
OPENready Interoperability Partner Program, we plan on continuing
to work with McDATA to deliver these types of solutions to customers.”
BASF IT Services
“Our storage needs are constantly changing, both in terms
of size and technical requirements. That's why it's absolutely critical
that our storage network is scalable, flexible and highly reliable.
We've found that McDATA, with its Sphereon 4500 Fabric Switch, can
both meet and exceed those needs,“ said Christian Popp, SAN
Architect at BASF IT Services. "Not only can the Sphereon 4500
be implemented without causing disruption, but its handling and
management meet the same high standards we know from the other McDATA
devices in our network.The Sphereon 4500 provides a high level of
functionality, scalability and flexibility which is a key to us
being able to do business successfully.”
Enterprise Storage Group
“The 4500 rips the costs in half, bringing high-end features
to the midrange market, and offers 'buy what you need, not what
you don't' flexibility,” said Steve Duplessie, analyst for
the Enterprise Storage Group. “What’s not to like?”
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
integrate SANavigator and ramp 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 2 Gb/s
and 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 switch markets, competition
in the storage area network and switch markets,
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.
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