Brocade Introduces SilkWorm 3250 and 3850, Breaks New Ground for Storage Networks in Small/Medium Business 8- and 16-Port Switches Reduce SAN Cost and Complexity, Provide Unique Upgrade Path for Fabric Scalability and Functionality
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Wed Mar 31 08:01:00 2004 EST
SAN JOSE, Calif., Mar 31, 2004 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ --
Brocade
Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade(R)) (Nasdaq: BRCD), the world's leading
provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), today
announced OEM availability of two new SAN switches that greatly reduce the
cost and complexity of SANs for Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) and
departments within enterprises. Designed to achieve low entry cost without
sacrificing capabilities, the SilkWorm(R) 3250 and SilkWorm 3850 switches
provide the same high level of performance and reliability as Brocade
enterprise-class switches.
The new Brocade switches are leading a re-calibration of industry
expectations for entry-level SAN infrastructure, providing new SAN users
affordable access to storage networking, ease-of-use, scalability, and
long-term investment protection.
Affordable Entry-level Switches
With limited IT budgets and staffing, small- and medium-sized
organizations strive for the greatest possible value for their IT investment.
Utilizing a fourth generation custom chip (ASIC) as the central point of an
integrated design, the SilkWorm 3250 and 3850 deliver excellent performance
and a wide range of features for exceptional value. Multiple configurations
of the two switches are available to meet individual customer needs and
tradeoffs for budget, scalability, and functionality, allowing first-time SAN
customers to start small and grow in the most economical fashion.
Extensive and Easy-to-Use Upgrade Path
SilkWorm 3250 and 3850 customers will benefit from a system design that
delivers the industry's broadest upgrade path. End users will be able to
easily and non-disruptively grow and scale their SANs, add features to their
SAN switches as needed, and accept software upgrades without interrupting the
critical flow of data that supports their businesses. The two new Brocade
switches allow SAN customers to start small and easily upgrade to support
larger fabrics and more advanced features such as Brocade's trunking,
performance monitoring, and fabric security capabilities. This flexible growth
path, which is enabled via simple software license keys, gives customers the
industry's widest range of price, performance, and functionality choices.
The SMB Market
"Our new offerings will provide value, seamless growth, and ease-of-use,
the key requirements for Small and Medium Business," said Tom Buiocchi,
Brocade VP of Marketing. "This is at the heart of our initiative to support a
whole new group of users who will greatly benefit from storage networking."
(See today's press release: Brocade to Extend Benefits of Networked Storage to
Small and Medium Businesses.)
As part of its solutions aimed at the SMB market, HP announced plans for a
new low-cost family of SAN solutions based on Brocade's new SilkWorm platforms
to be made available under the HP StorageWorks brand. "HP and Brocade are
working together to bring the benefits of SANs to small and medium-size
businesses," said Frank Harbist, vice president and general manager, Storage
Infrastructure and Software, HP. "Both companies recognize that the key to
success in the SMB segment is reduced SAN solution cost and complexity.
Through HP's innovative products, our work with best-of-breed partners like
Brocade, and our proven local services and support expertise, we're able to
offer SMB customers a much lower cost-of-entry to build, deploy and manage SAN
solutions."
"Meeting and understanding the specific needs of SMBs is at the heart of
IBM's strategy for this important customer set," said Scott Drummond, Program
Director, Storage Networking, IBM. "IBM's investments in innovation with our
business partners are driving advances in information technology that SMBs are
leveraging to compete and thrive."
"With its announcement of the SilkWorm 3250 and 3850, Brocade is endorsing
the SMB customer by making Fibre Channel storage more affordable and thereby
accelerating SAN adoptions," said Andy Ingram, vice president of marketing,
Sun Network Storage. "Reducing cost and complexity in the data center is Sun's
number one priority, and this new line of switches will address the needs of
an important segment of our customer base."
About Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.
Brocade offers the industry's leading intelligent platform for networking
storage. The world's leading systems, applications, and storage vendors have
selected Brocade to provide a networking foundation for their SAN solutions.
The Brocade SilkWorm family of fabric switches and software is designed to
optimize data availability and storage and server resources in the enterprise.
Using Brocade solutions, companies can simplify the implementation of SANs,
reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve
network and application efficiency. For more information, visit the Brocade
Website at www.brocade.com or contact the company at info@brocade.com.
NOTE: Brocade, the Brocade B weave logo, Secure Fabric OS, and SilkWorm
are registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the
United States and/or in other countries. FICON is a registered trademark of
IBM Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. All other brands, products,
or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of, and are used to
identify, products or services of their respective owners.
SOURCE Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.
media relations, Lee Davis, +1-408-333-5177, or
ldavis@brocade.com, or investor relations, Shirley Stacy, +1-408-333-5752, or
sstacy@brocade.com, both of Brocade Communications Systems; or Wendy Lewis of
FS Communications, +1-650-691-1488, or wendy@fscomm.com for Brocade
Communications Systems
brocade.com
Copyright (C) 2004 PR Newswire. All rights reserved.
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