January 19, 1999 15:06
CNT and BROCADE Team to Deliver SAN Solutions for Campus and
Wide-Area Networks
CNT's SAN Solutions Combined With BROCADE Fibre Channel Fabrics Will Deliver Industry's Most
Robust SAN/WAN Architecture
MINNEAPOLIS, and SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Computer Network Technology (CNT(R))
(Nasdaq: CMNT) and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (BROCADE(R)) announced today that they
are partnering to deliver disaster-tolerant Storage Area Networking (SAN) solutions for mission-critical,
distributed environments. The combination of CNT's UltraNet SAN solutions with BROCADE's Silkworm(R)
family of Fibre Channel Fabric switches offers customers the industry's most robust standards-based
architecture for deploying mission-critical enterprise SAN applications over campus and wide-area
networks.
Under a multi-year OEM agreement, CNT will offer the BROCADE family of Silkworm Fibre Channel Fabric
switches as part of its UltraNet family of SAN solutions. In addition, both companies will undertake joint
marketing and product development activities to drive the adoption of disaster-tolerant SANs over wide
area networks.
A SAN is a high-speed network that establishes a direct connection between storage devices and servers,
thereby enabling storage and tape subsystems to be connected remotely from the server. CNT's UltraNet
SAN solutions offer high-speed, reliable and secure access to mission-critical stored information,
including wide-area connectivity. The BROCADE Silkworm family of Fibre Channel Fabric switches
provides the most comprehensive, standards-based Fabric services and management access methods
available in the industry today. Combining these products will offer customers the industry's most robust
remote connectivity and management for disaster-tolerant SAN applications.
"CNT's mission is to offer solutions that support heterogeneous mission-critical, distributed operations,"
said Mark Knittel, vice president of marketing and business development at Computer Network
Technology. "Integrating BROCADE's highly-respected switches with UltraNet enables CNT to offer
high-performance local or remote SAN solutions that span S/390, Unix and NT servers. Together, we
enable customers to create robust, cost-effective SANs for mission-critical environments."
"The relationship with CNT furthers BROCADE's lead in providing open Fibre Channel Fabric switches for
organizations with demanding SAN infrastructure needs," said Peter Tarrant, vice president of marketing
and business development at BROCADE. "Disaster-tolerant environments are one of the most demanding,
and require exceptional throughput, network resiliency, and high-performance WAN connections. CNT is
the industry's choice in providing mission-critical SAN/WAN capabilities, and combining these capabilities
with the BROCADE full-fabric solutions creates the only solution in the market to deliver on these
requirements."
"The partnership between CNT and BROCADE expands the reach of Fibre Channel Fabrics in SANs over
wide area networks," said Ed Frymoyer, Ph.D., president of emf Associates. "By extending the benefits of
SANs in a disaster-tolerant environment over a wide area network, the CNT/BROCADE partnership has
the potential to change the future of the disaster-tolerant data center and addresses an important growing
market."
CNT's UltraNet Family
CNT's UltraNet solutions enable companies to create a SAN that moves and shares data between diverse
systems components. The Fibre Channel switch will be integrated with UltraNet and generally available in
the second quarter of 1999. It will enable diverse protocols such as Fibre Channel, SCSI, ATM, and T3/E3
to be integrated into the same interconnect platform, providing greater flexibility in a SAN infrastructure.
The family includes:
* The UltraNet Storage Director is a high-speed switching platform that
allows users to move and share data among diverse servers and storage
systems.
* The UltraNet Storage Gateway is a low-cost, high-performance product
that provides much of the functionality of the Storage Director on a
smaller platform.
* The UltraNet Storage Multiplexer is a product that allows multiple
servers to share up to 15 storage devices.
About Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.
Brocade is the leading supplier of Fibre Channel fabric solutions, which provide the intelligent backbone for
Storage Area Networks (SANs). According to International Data Corporation, Brocade supplies 84 percent
of the Fibre Channel switches in use at corporate data centers worldwide. Brocade manufactures and
markets the SilkWorm family of Fibre Channel switches and SAN management software to optimize data
availability in the storage enterprise. Using Brocade solutions, companies can simplify the implementation
of storage area networks, reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve
network and application efficiency and performance. Founded in 1995, Brocade is a privately held
company. Visit Brocade at brocade.com, or contact the company at info@brocade.com.
About Computer Network Technology (CNT)
Computer Network Technology, based in Minneapolis, Minn., is a leading provider of high-performance
networking solutions for Storage Area Network and channel networking applications. The company's
products allow mainframe and open systems environments to share data and information. The
Channelink(R), FileSpeed(TM), and UltraNet(R) product lines offer high-speed open systems connectivity,
access to legacy data and guaranteed data integrity for applications such as remote storage, disk
mirroring and disaster recovery. The company's products are sold worldwide through a direct sales force
and a network of authorized distributors. For more information, visit CNT's web site at www.cnt.com, or
call 800-638-8324 or 612-797-6000.
NOTE: BROCADE and SilkWorm are registered trademarks and SilkWorm Express is a trademark of
BROCADE Communications Systems Incorporated, in the United States and/or in 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.
/CONTACT: Laurel Crewe of CNT, 612-797-6721, or laurel_crewe@cnt.com; or
Julie Redard of Copithorne & Bellows, 617-450-4300, or julie.redard@cbpr.com,
for Computer Network Technology; or Jennifer Hart of Trainer Public Relations,
415-440-2208, or jennifer@trainerpr.com, for Brocade Communications Systems,
Inc./
/Web site: cnt.com
/Web site: brocade.com
(CMNT)
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