McDATA Announces New 'Elite Solutions' Partners Delivering McDATA's Fibre Channel FabricPak Solutions Through Systems Integrator Channels
BROOMFIELD, Colo., April 28 /PRNewswire/ -- McDATA Corporation, the Enterprise Fibre Channel Company, today announced that six national and regional systems integrators (SIs) have joined the company's innovative partnership program for delivering complete, end-to-end FabricPak(TM) storage area network (SAN) solutions using Fibre Channel technology. The new North American Elite Solutions Partners include Bay Resources, Inc.; CIBER, Inc.; Lewan and Associates; Piedmont Technology Group; Premier Systems Integrators; and StorNet, Inc. McDATA has already partnered with Integrated Business Solutions (IBS) and PDC Solutions (see Nov. 11, 1998 announcement).
IT organizations are being deluged with marketing hype for implementing SANs with Fibre Channel arbitrated loops and switches, many of which are limited to homogenous department and workgroup-class environments -- small operating islands. "These offerings are not living up to Fibre Channel's heterogeneous promises and do not take into account the security requirements necessary to safely share storage devices," stated Jack McDonnell, chairman, president and CEO of McDATA. "McDATA's partnership program offers solutions providers the benefits of our extensive interoperability testing in heterogeneous environments, our professional services methodologies, comprehensive education, and marketing programs for highly available, switched Fibre Channel networks, in addition to access to the industry's only Fibre Channel Director."
"McDATA's Elite Solutions Partner Program provides the products, expertise, and skills that let SIs successfully market and implement highly available SANs. SIs can also deliver value to their end-user customers with fully tested solutions, ensuring shorter time-to-implementation," pointed out Michael Klayko, the executive vice president of McDATA Sales and Marketing. McDATA currently offers FabricPak solutions for mixed SUN and NT environments. "These are comprehensive packages comprised of hardware, software, and services that solve today's toughest IT challenges, including server and storage consolidation, high-speed backup and recovery, high-availability data access, and systems clustering," added Klayko. "We also offer the EB-1200 Bridge which connects legacy SCSI devices to the fabric."
"Bay chose to partner with McDATA because they offer a much needed business critical solution for our customers," stated Steven Thomas, vice president, Bay Resources, Inc. Thomas added, "McDATA is on the leading edge of technology, offering a unique solution that makes it possible for companies to consolidate their operations, decrease management costs, and gain immediate access to their most precious resource; data, from a variety of mission critical systems."
"CIBER is delighted to announce its relationship with McDATA as a McDATA Elite Solutions Provider. The storage market is exploding and Fibre Channel technology has matured significantly over the past year, due in large part to the interoperability testing and the new products brought to market by companies such as EMC Corp. and McDATA. Their enterprise-class storage and storage connectivity solutions, when combined with CIBER's extensive networking customer base, experience and skill set, make it possible for customers to pursue Enterprise Storage Networks solutions with CIBER now," said John Stubbs, vice president of CIBER Network Services, Inc., a CIBER, Inc. subsidiary.
Bob Ludwig, vice president of Lewan and Associates Engineering, stated, "With the growth of storage requirements in the data center, there is an elevated need to enhance connectivity and availability of data across an enterprise. Lewan's alliance with McDATA strategically positions us to provide enterprise-class, highly available storage area networks for the most critical applications in the industry. We are excited to share McDATA's leadership position in this fast growing market."
Says Greg Hoogerland, chief technology officer of Premier Systems Integrators, "Premier offers our clients a robust storage strategy in support of their mission critical ERP solutions and business intelligence suites. We view the partnership with McDATA as a significant enhancement in our ability to assist customers in achieving the performance goals necessary to serve the enterprise's data requirements."
About Bay Resources, Inc.
Bay is a technology services company supplying the very best consulting services and innovative technology products to its customers. It is committed to "bridging the gap" between business needs and the right technology products and services, enabling companies to compete effectively in today's complex marketplace. Bay has been providing enterprise solutions for more than 13 years with current locations in Atlanta, Detroit, Miami, Orlando, and St. Petersburg. It has consistently been a "Top 3" technology integration company in the state of Florida while continuing to provide unparalleled service and support to its customers nationwide.
Bay contact: Denise Gish (727-571-1100).
About CIBER, Inc.
CIBER is a premier provider of system integration consulting services. Employing 6,600-plus employees located in over 45 major cities in more than 20 states plus Canada, CIBER offers leveraged information technology integration solutions in five principal areas: management consulting, aligning business/IT solutions (E-Business, data warehousing and middleware integration), enterprise applications solutions (EAS/ERP) implementation and outsourcing services, enterprise integration and network services consulting, and professional services.
About Lewan and Associates
In 27 years of experience as a VAR and system integrator, Lewan and Associates has developed into a $100 million company and the Rocky Mountain Region's largest provider of enterprise solutions. Lewan maintains and supports more than 1,000 networks and provides its customers with high-availability Fibre Channel switching solutions. For more information on Lewan and Associates, visit www.lewan.com.
About Premier Systems Integrators
Premier Systems Integrators, with over 12 offices nationwide, focuses on designing robust infrastructure solutions and supporting its customers' most demanding applications. Whether designing a new enterprise solution, executing transition to an improved environment or running company infrastructure at an outsourcing center, Premier creates innovative client-server solutions to help businesses flourish in a dynamic global market. Working with leading hardware vendors like McDATA, it provides customers with cutting-edge network design and implementation, systems architecture and consolidation, and enterprise resource planning integration products and services. Working closely with application providers like Oracle, SAP, BaaN, and others, its consulting and turnkey solutions have resulted in the implementation of hundreds of integrated business environments for satisfied customers. For more information on Premier, visit www.premier-systems.net.
About Piedmont Technology Group
Piedmont is a technology and consulting services company, specializing in UNIX and NT platforms for business systems applications combined with connectivity solutions. Piedmont offers hardware and software products plus professional consulting services for designing, building, and growing technology infrastructures. For more information on Piedmont, visit www.Ptech.com.
About StorNet, Inc.
StorNet is a nationwide value-added-integrator focusing on the design, deployment, and support of systems and networks for strategic business applications. Key applications include: enterprise business applications such as ERP, decision support, and data warehousing; commercial internet and intranet applications including E-Commerce, database integration, and publishing; and video communications applications such as corporate communications, on-demand training/education, and ISP/broadcasting systems. For more information on StorNet, visit www.stornet.com.
About McDATA
McDATA Corporation is the leading supplier of datacenter networking systems, including Director and switch products for use in enterprise storage applications. McDATA offers enterprise-class solutions for open systems that include datacenter-centric, enterprise-wide network management for the complete line. McDATA's high-availability ED-5000 Enterprise Fibre Channel Director is the exclusive switching element of EMC's Enterprise Storage Networks and Amdahl's Storage Area Networks. McDATA's end-to-end solutions provide IT organizations with the tools and methodologies to implement robust storage area networks. Headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, McDATA has more than 300 employees worldwide. Information about McDATA can be found at www.mcdata.com.
McDATA and the McDATA logo are registered trademarks and FabricPak is a trademark of McDATA Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE McDATA Corporation
CO: McDATA Corporation; Bay Resources, Inc.; CIBER, Inc.; Lewan and Associates; Piedmont Technology Group; Premier Systems Integrators; StorNet, Inc. |
