Amdahl Forms Alliance with McDATA to Provide Complete Fibre Channel Storage Solutions for the Data Center
SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 13, 1998--
Amdahl includes the McDATA ED-5000 Enterprise Fibre Channel
Director and EFC Management in its Storage Area Network Strategy
Amdahl Corporation today announced an alliance with McDATA
Corporation to provide complete, high-availability, Fibre Channel
Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions for the data center. Under the
terms of the alliance, Amdahl will add McDATA's industry leading
ED-5000 Enterprise Fibre Channel Director and EFC Management software
to its SAN strategy. Data center customers can contain escalating
costs and improve the manageability of their growing IS resources with
features such as server and storage consolidation, any-to-any
connectivity between servers and storage, extended cabling distances,
fault tolerant operation, proactive service capabilities, centralized
connectivity management and the highest aggregate bandwidth available
in the market today.
The McDATA Director is the only Fibre Channel switching device
that offers high-availability operation with robust centralized
management and dynamic connectivity between 32 ports. Combined with
Amdahl storage subsystems such as LVS(TM) and Spectris(TM), along with
Global Information Sharing(TM) software in thoroughly tested SAN
configurations, the Amdahl solution lowers overhead costs dramatically
by increasing storage management productivity over decentralized
server-dependent storage environments. These capabilities make the
Amdahl solution the most cost-effective and robust SAN solution
available.
"This alliance positions Amdahl as a leader in the SAN
marketplace by providing data center customers with a concrete
solution for deploying SANs that lower costs and dramatically improve
management productivity," said George Mele, director of storage
marketing, Amdahl Corporation. "We are particularly pleased to be
working with an industry leader like McDATA, a company that sets the
industry benchmark with its Fibre Channel Director, which is key to
SAN robustness and functionality."
"We are delighted to team up with Amdahl, a company recognized
for years of success in providing data center professionals with
enterprise-class storage solutions. This new Fibre Channel SAN
implementation combines the best of both companies - Amdahl's high-end
storage solution expertise and McDATA's market leadership in providing
enterprise-class switching products. Together, McDATA and Amdahl will
offer corporate IT customers a robust storage solution that more than
meets their critical high-availability needs," stated Michael Klayko,
executive vice president of McDATA sales and marketing.
The Amdahl SAN solution provides customers with the only fully
redundant, highly available, data center-class switching solution
offered today. Included in Amdahl's SAN solution strategy is a full
range of deployment and maintenance services with the same high-level
of expertise and customer support that has long been Amdahl's
hallmark.
This Fibre Channel Storage solution with McDATA is yet another
example of the Amdahl tradition of bringing robust, enterprise-class
technology solutions and services to its customers by providing
products and services that help customers gain a competitive advantage
in their industries.
About McDATA
With more than 700,000 fiber optic ports shipped, McDATA is the
leading supplier of enterprise-class directors and switches to major
server and storage vendors. McDATA is the only company to develop an
enterprise-class Fibre Channel Director for open systems and furnish
enterprise fabric connectivity management for a complete family of
connectivity products. McDATA FabricPaks provide end-to-end, packaged
solutions to help businesses implement enterprise storage networks
using Fibre Channel technology. Headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado,
McDATA has more than 250 employees worldwide. Information about McDATA
products and solutions can be found at mcdata.com or by
calling 1-800-545-5773. Multimedia summary at
play.rbn.com
About Amdahl
Amdahl Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fujitsu
Limited, a leading provider of information technology products and
solutions for the global marketplace with revenues of $37.7 billion in
the fiscal year ended March 31, 1998. Amdahl provides integrated
enterprise computing solutions designed to meet the needs of the
leading, most compute-intensive environments around the world. Amdahl
has over 25 years of experience with large-scale computing solutions
and client/server technology. The company supports heterogeneous
architectures found in mission-critical customer environments that
blend MVS(R), Windows NT(R), and UNIX(R) operating systems.
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Amdahl combines hardware and
software products and services methods with world class offerings to
create customized solutions that help clients gain a competitive
advantage in their industries.
For the Year 2000 compliance status of this offering and any
others, visit the Amdahl Year 2000 Web site at: www.amdahl.com/y2k
Amdahl is a registered trademark, Spectris, Global Information
Sharing and LVS are trademarks of Amdahl Corporation. McDATA and the
McDATA logo are registered trademarks and FabricPak is a trademark of
McDATA Corporation. MVS is a registered trademark of International
Business Machine Corporation. Windows NT is a registered trademark of
Microsoft Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United
States and other countries, licensed exclusively (except in Japan
where such license is non-exclusive) through X/Open Company, Limited.
All other trademarks and product names are the property of their
respective owners.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Amdahl news releases are available on the
Internet at www.amdahl.com , the Amdahl Corporation home page. The
Amdahl site provides current, in-depth information on Amdahl offerings
and solutions for enterprise computing.
CONTACT:
Amdahl Corporation LVA Communications
Esther Hansen Timothy J. Polakowski
(408) 992-2257 (860) 739-5598
emh00@amdahl.com tim@lva.com
McDATA Corp. Dove Communications
Linda Hardman Susan Merriman
(303) 460-4442 (303) 652-8097
lhardman@mcdata.com dove@rmi.net |
