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To: gladman who wrote (96248)	3/13/2000 12:53:00 PM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

>Are you issuing a Strong Pimp Buy here? All I'm saying is I'm already begging for shares from Morgan Stanley. >SAN JOSE, Calif.-February 1, 2000-Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (BROCADE©) (Nasdaq: BRCD) and Optical Networks, Inc. announced today a strategic relationship focused on interconnecting enterprise storage area networks (SANs) over Metropolitan area optical networks. The companies will enable connectivity from SANs, based on BROCADE's scalable storage networking platform, through Metropolitan optical networks using Optical Networks' Dynamic Transport System? (DTS?). The two companies plan to integrate their respective management software platforms, ensure interoperability between the BROCADE SilkWorm© family of Fibre Channel fabric switches and Optical Networks' DTS, and promote their respective offerings to enterprise customers and Metro carriers. The initial phase of software integration is expected to be complete in the second quarter of calendar year 2000. BROCADE SilkWorm switches connect servers with storage devices through a SAN, providing a highly available and scalable environment for disaster recovery, remote backup, and server and storage consolidation. Optical Networks' DTS is a next generation transport system that allows service providers to offer several new classes of data-services and significantly upgrade capacity without adding fiber or imposing cost-prohibitive equipment upgrades. It combines high channel counts (up to 66 wavelengths) with complete wavelength manageability and transparently supports multiple service types, including SONET and Fibre Channel. Connecting Islands of SANs through Flexible, Fault-Resilient Fiber Connectivity The relationship will extend the bandwidth, reliability, and manageability of SANs across Metro area networks, providing up to 2 Gbps transmission speed per wavelength (or 132 Gbps per system). With a fiber only, high-speed SAN-to-SAN connection, companies will benefit from new types of SAN applications, such as remote backup and storage, dynamic data replication, and disaster tolerance in a reliable and scalable environment. "As SAN implementations continue to increase in both size and complexity, connecting enterprise SAN islands over a larger Metro area is the next evolution of an adaptable storage infrastructure. The imperatives of e-business (speed and flexibility) require greater levels of infrastructure adaptiveness and business continuity. As storage requirements continue to grow 200-300 percent per year, driven by e-business requirements, Fibre Channel to fiber-optic connectivity will help organizations increase the flexibility and capabilities of their storage infrastructure to meet ever-increasing storage demands," said Sean Derrington, program director of Stamford, Conn.-based META Group. Outsourcing Storage and Information: A New Class of Service Connecting SANs across optical networks in a Metro area will enable a new class of "storage utility" services for Metro carriers and service providers. Service providers will be able to offer their enterprise customers cost-effective, outsourced storage services on-demand, freeing them from the time consuming and costly management of storage environments. Simplifying End-to-End SAN Management Over a Metropolitan Area In addition to verifying product interoperability, BROCADE and Optical Networks also plan to integrate their respective software management environments to enable a unified view of SAN management across an interconnected SAN, regardless of the backbone network and distance. "We look forward to working with BROCADE to accelerate the delivery of innovative services, such as storage on-demand, to meet the data availability and reliability requirements of today's '24 x 7' business operations," said Hugh Martin, president and CEO of Optical Networks. "Optical Networks is providing the crucial wavelength-based optical connection to public Metro and private networks with its Dynamic Transport System. Our transport system is able to handle the surging volumes of data coming from SANs and other sources in Metro environments. Working together, Optical Networks and BROCADE will make connectivity between SANs and Metro optical networks a reality." "The combination of BROCADE's proven storage networking products and Optical Networks' DTS will further drive SAN expansion. The relationship with Optical Networks will help simplify SAN deployment issues as our customers extend SANs across the Metro area and take advantage of the new class of storage services," said Peter Tarrant, BROCADE vice president of marketing and business development. About Optical Networks, Inc. Optical Networks combines next generation Metro optical transport systems with data networking technology to deliver true optical networks. These networks enable Metro carriers to deploy new wavelength-routed services with end-to-end manageability, in addition to scaling the available fiber capacity for carrying multiple SONET and broadband data services. Optical Networks' Dynamic Transport System (DTS) is composed of three essential elements that deliver data-centric wavelength-routed servicesóthe ONLINE 9000?, an optical transport platform that delivers up to 66 channels per node; OPTX?, an optical network operating system for wavelength and service management; and OLMP?, an optical link management protocol suite for internetworking between the optical transport and data or voice switching layers of the network. For more information about Optical Networks and its products, visit Optical Networks' Web site at www.opticalnetworks.com.