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SUNNYVALE, Calif., May 2, 2000 - Amdahl Corporation and McDATA Corporation,
leading storage area network (SAN) companies, have teamed to bring vendor-neutral SAN education to the IT industry worldwide through SAN University. SAN University has extended its successful 1999 pilot program offering a structured and systematic curriculum to meet continuing customer demand.
SAN University helps IT professionals build the infrastructure to handle the exploding amounts of data generated by e-commerce, network globalization, mergers/acquisitions, and accelerating data digitization. At SAN University, IT professionals also learn about high-value disciplines, such as backup and recovery, business continuance, and data integration that a SAN environment can provide.SANs are the data center infrastructure of the future, but lack of experience, implementation challenges, and interoperability issues are considerable. The industry needed to offer comprehensive education for people trying to implement SAN environments. Amdahl and McDATA have answered the challenge with the SAN University curriculum.
The Amdahl/ McDATA partnership delivers a high-value SAN education program. "As SAN adoption accelerates, enterprises face a critical shortfall in expertise," said Richard McCormack, vice president of Storage Marketing, Amdahl. "SAN University addresses this problem with a concentrated, accelerated curriculum to help customers speed SAN implementation and improve their
competitiveness."
"We want to help IT professionals establish control over the incredible amount of information pervading their organizations," said Jeff Vogel, vice president of marketing and systems integration at McDATA. "We are very pleased to join with Amdahl to offer the only comprehensive SAN education program that equips IT professionals with the tools to access, implement and design a SAN."
Structured, Proven Curriculum
SAN University offers complete, hands-on experience that IT professionals can directly apply to the customer environment. SAN University helps companies assess business and technical requirements, apply SAN strategies to IT objectives, understand Fibre Channel, and select the most appropriate topology. SAN University also teaches how to plan and design a Fibre Channel SAN infrastructure, install and configure SAN components correctly the first time, and administer the enterprise fabric environment.
Evaluators consistently rated the pilot program very highly-typically commenting, "well-organized," "comprehensive," and "knowledgeable instructors."
Coming soon is a free, one-hour PlaceWare-based SAN Essentials class that will be available on the Internet. Following is the initial schedule of fee courses. Addit ional dates, locations and courses will continue to be added, and the content will continually be updated to stay current with the rapidly evolving SAN environment.
| Date |
Course |
Duration |
Location |
| June 20 |
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
Detroit |
| June 22 |
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
Chicago |
| June 27 |
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
UK |
| June 28-29 |
Designing the SAN Infrastructure |
2 Day |
UK |
|
July 10
|
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
WA DC |
| July 11 |
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
Hartford |
| July 13 |
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
Toronto |
| July 17 |
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
Dallas |
| July 18-19 |
Designing the SAN Infrastructure |
2 Day |
Dallas |
| July 21 |
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
San Francisco |
| Aug 1 |
Fibre Channel SAN Basics |
1 Day |
Denver |
| Aug 2-4 |
Implementing SAN Solutions |
2.5 Day |
Denver |
More information can be found by visiting http://www.sanuniversity.com,
by calling 1-800-752-0393, or by emailing sanuniversity@mcdata.com.
Collaborative Resource
Amdahl contributes extensive data center expertise and fiber optic infrastructure experience and an open, non-proprietary SAN solutions approach. "Our alliances with the leading Fibre Channel vendors in the business and our intensive program of integration and interoperability testing enable Amdahl to deliver cost-effective and highly reliable SAN solutions. This is the background and expertise we bring to SAN University," said Bobby Young, Chief Technology Officer, Amdahl Corporation. In addition to offering storage products that attach to servers from multiple vendors, Amdahl delivers integrated SAN solutions that include servers, storage subsystems, hubs, fabric switches, and Fibre Channel host bus adapters, along with SAN planning and implementation services.
McDATA specializes in providing highly available, scalable, and centrally managed SAN solutions, leading the industry with enterprise-class Fibre Channel switching products that complement Amdahl's enterprise planning and implementation expertise. "McDATA has been an early leader in offering comprehensive SAN education," said Mike Gustafson, vice president of worldwide sales and service at McDATA. "Our solutions-oriented curriculum is highly leveraged from direct experiences in our state-of-the-art Systems Integration Lab (SIL), and from our FabricReady SAN solutions. Since 1998, we've
trained more than 1,200 engineers, consultants, and IT staff. At SAN University, we want IT professionals to take McDATA's expertise and experience and put it all to work in their own data centers."
About McDATA Corporation: http://www.mcdata.com/McDATA/mcinfo.html
About Amdahl Corporation: http://www.amdahl.com/about/abtamh.htm
Amdahl is a registered trademark and SAN University is a trademark of
Amdahl Corporation. McDATA is a registered trademark of McDATA Corporation.
All other trademarks and product names are the property of their respective
owners.
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