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.
CO: Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.; Computer Network Technology
ST: California
IN: CPR
SU:
01/19/99 14:51 EST prnewswire.com |
