Twelve Industry Leaders to Develop World's First Fibre Channel Management Standard
HOPKINTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 2, 1999--
The FibreAlliance Will Implement Common Approach for Managing
Fibre Channel-Based Storage Networks
EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), the world's leading provider of enterprise storage systems, software and services, today announced formation of the FibreAlliance. The goal of the FibreAlliance is to develop and implement common methods for managing heterogeneous Fibre Channel-based networks of storage systems and computer servers, which are also known as storage area networks, or SANs. Already, EMC and the 11 charter members of the FibreAlliance, each a leading information technology provider, have made significant progress in drafting the engineering specification on which these methods will be based. Later this spring, the FibreAlliance will submit this specification to independent standards bodies for consideration as an industry-wide standard.
This groundbreaking initiative will provide customers of FibreAlliance members enhanced integration and higher functionality among Fibre Channel-based products, resulting in simplified management, enhanced cost effectiveness and more rapid market deployment of SANs.
The charter members of the FibreAlliance are leading providers of Fibre Channel-based hubs, switches, host bus adapters, routers, servers and management software, including: Ancor Communications, Inc., (NASDAQ:ANCR) www.ancor.com Emulex Corporation, (NASDAQ:EMLX) www.emulex.com Gadzoox Networks, www.gadzoox.com G2 Networks, Inc., www.g2networks.com Hewlett-Packard Company's (NYSE:HWP) OpenView Business Unit and
Enterprise Storage Solutions Division, www.hp.com JNI, www.jni.com Legato Systems, Inc., (NASDAQ:LGTO) www.legato.com McDATA Corporation, www.mcdata.com QLogic Corporation, www.qlc.com VERITAS Software Corporation, (NASDAQ:VRTS) www.veritas.com Vixel Corporation, www.vixel.com
"The FibreAlliance brings together the resources of the industry's leading providers of Fibre Channel connectivity to help customers realize the full potential of SANs," said Robert Dutkowsky, EMC's Executive Vice President of Markets and Channels. "Members of the FibreAlliance share EMC's commitment to accelerate customers' ability to effectively deploy and manage this emerging technology. As EMC expands its Enterprise Storage Network (ESN) offerings, the work of the FibreAlliance will contribute significantly to the capabilities we deliver to our customers."
EMC Enterprise Storage Networks include the industry's fastest, most intelligent platform-independent enterprise storage systems; centralized management software; rigorously tested interoperability; robust online storage-to-storage data movement; storage-based security; and data center-class customer support.
Advancing Fibre Channel Standards
"The FibreAlliance is demonstrably committed to delivering open solutions to customers' most pressing challenges for deploying storage area networks," said Michael Peterson, President of Strategic Research Corporation, a market research firm located in Santa Barbara, Cal. "By agreeing on common methods for managing SANs, committing to a delivery schedule for products that employ these methods, and then promoting standardization of the specification, this innovative initiative is firmly advancing customers' ability to realize the significant benefits SANs have to offer."
SANs provides a flexible, efficient way for customers to consolidate and manage growing pools of online enterprise information located throughout even the largest global enterprises. The emerging SAN model requires the use of Fibre Channel as the basic method of interconnecting the heterogeneous elements of the storage network, such as hubs, switches, host bus adapters, routers, servers and storage systems, over great distances and at very high speed. Until now, however, there has been no commonly accepted method for monitoring and managing the elements in Fibre Channel-based storage area networks.
To broaden market acceptance of Fibre Channel-based SANs, the FibreAlliance will develop an engineering specification, describing the framework in which vendors may develop FibreAlliance-compliant products and solutions. Member companies anticipate that the products and solutions they implement will ship throughout 1999 and beyond.
The FibreAlliance will enhance the value of Fibre Channel-based solutions for both its members and their customers. Customers will benefit by the use of an integrated management interface that enables software products to gain a high-level view of the storage network and to obtain detailed SAN performance information from across the enterprise.
Further, a key benefit to FibreAlliance members is integration of their products with leading enterprise management solutions, including EMC's management software framework for EMC Enterprise Storage, Hewlett-Packard Company's OpenView software, Legato Global Enterprise Management of Storage (GEMS), and VERITAS Storage Management Suite. In addition, other storage management frameworks will be able to implement the new FibreAlliance management approach.
EMC Corporation, a Fortune 500 company based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, is the world's technology and market leader in the rapidly growing market for intelligent enterprise storage systems, software and services. The company's products store, retrieve, manage, protect and share information from all major computing environments, including UNIX, Windows NT and mainframe platforms. The company has offices worldwide, trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EMC, and is a component of the S&P 500 Index. For further information about EMC and its storage solutions, EMC's corporate web site can be accessed at emc.com.
EMC and Symmetrix are registered trademarks and EMC Enterprise Storage Network is a trademark of EMC Corporation.
This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined under the Federal Securities Laws. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) a failure by any supplier of high density DRAMs, disk drives or other components to meet EMC's requirements for an extended period of time; (ii) delays in the development of new technology and the transition to new products; (iii) the historic and recurring "hockey stick" pattern of the Company's sales by which a disproportionate percentage of a quarter's total sales occur in the last month and weeks and days of each quarter; (iv) the "hockey stick" pattern of the Company's sales, making it extremely difficult to predict near-term demand and adjust production capacity accordingly; (v) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, in the computer storage market; (vi) economic trends in various geographic markets and fluctuating currency exchange rates; (vii) the relative and varying rates of product price and component cost declines; (viii) deterioration or termination of the agreements with certain of the Company's OEMs or resellers; (ix) risks associated with acquisitions; (x) Year 2000 issues; (xi) other one-time events and other important factors disclosed previously and from time to time in EMC's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
FibreAlliance Member Contacts
Ancor Communications, Inc., Mary Miller, Director Corporate Communications, 1-800-342-7379, marym@ancor.com
Emulex Corporation, Mike Lantow, Senior Marketing Services Manager, 714-513-8161, mike.lantow@emulex.com
G2 Networks, Inc., Deborah-Anne Baxter, Marketing/Communication, 408-399-3874, deborah@g2networks.com
Gadzoox Networks, technical contact: Erik Ottem, Director of Strategic Marketing, 408-360-4950, eottemm@gadzoox.com; press contact: Dominique Becker, Corporate Communication Manager, 408-361-6143, dom@gadzoox.com
HP Enterprise Storage Solutions Division, Bianca Schaut, 650-858-3728, bschaut@cipr.com
HP OpenView, Julie Redard, 617-450-4300 x234, julie.redard@cbpr.com
JNI, Natalie Calegari, Marketing Communications Manager, 619-597-9652, ncalegari@jni.com
Legato Systems, Inc., Suzan Woods, Director of Marketing 650-812-6112, swoods@legato.com
McDATA Corporation, Linda Hardman, 303-460-4442, lhardman@mcdata.com;
QLogic Corporation, technical contact: Art Ford, Product Marketing, 714-668-5375, a_ford@qlc.com, press contact: Irene Santoyo, Corporate Communications, 714-668-5359, i_santoyo@qlc.com
VERITAS Software Corporation, Samantha Paior, 650-335-8566, pr@veritas.com
Vixel Corporation, Chris Lyon, Marketing Communications Manager, 425-806-4317, clyon@vixel.com
EMC Corporation contact: Kenneth McDonnell, 508-435-1000 x77424, mcdonnell_ken@emc.com
CONTACT:
EMC Corporation
Kenneth McDonnell, 508-435-1000 x77424
mcdonnell_ken@emc.com
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