McDATA's 2Gb/s Director and Fabric Switches Available
Through Hitachi Data Systems Worldwide
Customers Can Reap Benefits of High Availability Switches and Industry's
Only 2Gb/s Director Qualified for FICON and Fibre Channel
BROOMFIELD, Colo., May 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --
McDATA(R) Corporation (NASDAQ:MCDTA, MCDT), the worldwide leader in open
storage networking solutions, announced that its 2Gb/s Intrepid(TM) 6000
Series Director and Sphereon(TM) 3000 Series Fabric Switches will be made
generally available June 4 through Hitachi Data Systems, a subsidiary of
Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT). McDATA's 2Gb/s family of Directors and Switches
are designed to support the unique demands of enterprise storage applications
while enabling unrivalled flexibility for small-to-medium size customers
looking to deploy cost-effective storage networking solutions. McDATA's
Intrepid FICON- and Fibre Channel-enabled Director will be made available
through a distribution agreement that also includes McDATA's entire core-to-
edge family of 2Gb/s products, including its Sphereon 3000 Series 16- and
32-port Fabric Switches, as well as McDATA's capacity-on-demand Flexport
Technology.
"Enterprises today require products that lead the industry in high
availability, scalability and investment protection," said Don McNicoll,
senior director, product marketing, Hitachi Data Systems. "McDATA's best-in-
class Director with Hitachi Freedom Storage systems offers unparalleled
investment protection and support of multiple protocols, including FICON.
McDATA's Fabric Switches provide the high availability products in their class
and bring to the mid-range market many attributes of McDATA's Directors."
"Hitachi Data Systems and McDATA each have a long-standing commitment to
the delivery of best-in-class storage solutions," said Dick Search, vice
president of marketing for McDATA. "McDATA's 2Gb/s high availability product
line combined with Hitachi Freedom Storage, enables Hitachi Data System's
customers to meet, exceed and build on the storage requirements they have
today but the storage requirements they will have tomorrow. Customers get
peace of mind that their investment today will work with the technologies of
tomorrow, and they are assured they are receiving the industry's highest
standard of data availability."
The McDATA Intrepid Director 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 common Extendable Open Network
(EON(TM)) architecture that supports upgrades to emerging technologies such as
10Gb/s, iSCSI, FCIP and InfiniBand. The McDATA Sphereon 3000 Series Fabric
Switches are the only mid-range switches in the industry built on Director-
class technology -- offering optimal scalability, management and availability.
Hitachi's worldwide distribution of McDATA's full family of 2Gb/s products
also marks the availability of McDATA's Flexport Technology. McDATA's
Flexport Technology allows customers to add ports on an "as needed" basis and
without disruption. For example, McDATA's Sphereon 3216 Fabric Switch can be
configured as an 8-port model with the ability to expand to 16 ports without
service interruption. The Sphereon 3232 Fabric Switch can be configured in
16-, 24-, and 32-port increments and McDATA's Director is upgradeable in
increments of 4 ports, delivering to customers industry-leading capacity on
demand. |
