IBM to Offer McDATA 2Gb/s Intrepid(TM) 6000 Series Director,
Industry's First 2Gb/s Director, to Customers Worldwide
McDATA Intrepid the Only 2Gb/s Director Qualified
For Both FICON and Fibre Channel Traffic
BROOMFIELD, Colo., April 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
McDATA(R) Corporation (NASDAQ:MCDTA, MCDT), the worldwide leader in open
storage networking solutions, announced today that IBM Corporation (NYSE:IBM)
will sell and distribute McDATA's 2Gb/s Intrepid(TM) 6000 Series Director, the
world's first 2Gb/s Director. Beginning May 31, IBM customers will be able to
enjoy the benefits of industry-leading investment protection, minimization of
risk, ultra-high availability and high-speed performance. McDATA's Intrepid
Director will be made available through a distribution agreement that also
will include McDATA's entire core-to-edge family of 2Gb/s products, including
its Sphereon(TM) 3000 Series 16- and 32-port Fabric Switches.
The McDATA Intrepid surpasses all competitor offerings in terms of
flexibility with its ability to handle both mainframe (FICON) and open systems
(Fibre Channel) data traffic, as well as an architecture -- built on McDATA's
common Extendable Open Network (EON(TM)) Architecture -- that will support
upgrades to emerging technologies such as iSCSI, FCIP and InfiniBand.
McDATA's full family of 2Gb/s storage networking products delivers to
customers the end-to-end performance benefits of a complete 2Gb/s storage
infrastructure, where all elements of the SAN are running at the industry's
fastest available transfer rates.
"IBM and McDATA each have a long standing commitment to the delivery of
world class storage solutions," said Jim Kelly, vice president marketing, IBM
Storage Products Division. "McDATA's 2Gb/s high availability Director should
be very appealing to customers and we look forward to extending its unrivaled
value to IBM's mainframe and open systems customers. Making available
McDATA's 2Gb/s storage networking products enables IBM to meet and exceed the
storage requirements of its customers -- from the small-to-mid size companies
to very large enterprises."
With the addition of McDATA's 2Gb/s Intrepid 6000 Series Director, IBM
will offer the world's only:
-- 2Gb/s Director-class storage networking product;
-- 2Gb/s Director-class storage networking product qualified to handle
traffic for both mainframe (FICON) and Open Systems (Fibre Channel)
environments.
"SANs are increasingly becoming a vital and essential part of IT
infrastructures for companies of all sizes. As this progression continues,
McDATA and its partners such as IBM constantly strive to offer customers more
cost effective and reliable ways to manage their critical information," said
John Kelley, president and chief operating officer for McDATA. "The
flexibility of McDATA's 2Gb/s Intrepid 6000 Series Director, with the ability
to be deployed in either FICON or Fibre Channel environments is unrivaled in
the industry. The investment protection, reliability and simplified
management of McDATA's storage networking products simply cannot be matched by
any other offering in the market." |
