05/04-05   -   Pressemeldinger

Emulex and Brocade Announce EZPilot Multi-Vendor Management Wizard to Streamline SAN Installation and Deployment

EZPilot Offers Simple End-to-End Storage Provisioning and is Designed for Windows Server 2003 Environments and to Align with Microsoft’s Simple SAN Program

Emulex Corporation (NYSE: ELX), the industry´s preeminent source for a broad range of advanced storage networking infrastructure solutions, and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRCD), the world´s leading provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), today announced their "EZPilot" multi-vendor SAN management wizard. With the introduction of EZPilot, Brocade and Emulex, the two leading vendors in the SAN infrastructure space, have delivered a common installation and management tool for their respective switch and HBA products for the very first time.

Emulex and Brocade will demonstrate the EZPilot solution in the Microsoft Storage Pavilion at the upcoming Storage Networking World (SNW) in Phoenix, AZ, April 13-15, 2005. EZPilot will make it easy to install and provision a SAN by navigating through straightforward wizards to deploy the required components, including HBAs, switches and the storage arrays from a variety of vendors. EZPilot, which is anticipated to be available for OEM qualification in summer 2005, will free end users from the difficulties often associated with SAN deployment and management.

"Emulex and Brocade have leveraged our strategic partnership to deliver the industry´s most advanced, multi-vendor SAN installation and management tool, and we are confident the enhanced ease-of-use capabilities will be welcomed by both OEM and end user customers," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of worldwide marketing, Emulex Corp. "EZPilot will enable end users to experience a simple, integrated, out-of-box experience with the market leaders in HBAs and switches."

The introduction of EZPilot is a result of the two companies´ agreement to expand a multi-year strategic partnership to further simplify the deployment of SANs in enterprise, midrange and the small- to medium-sized business (SMB) market segments. Brocade and Emulex have the largest installed base of their respective products in the industry. Their customers can utilize EZPilot as they extend Fibre Channel beyond the data center and into remote offices and departmental computing.

"We are pleased to demonstrate our work with Emulex to bring expanded levels of value, ease-of-use, and ease-of-administration to storage area networking," said Tom Buiocchi, Brocade´s vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "The Microsoft Simple SAN program will make the high-availability and reliability of storage area networking available to a far broader range of organizations."

"The new EZPilot management tool from Brocade and Emulex maps directly to the principles of simplicity Microsoft evangelizes in its Simple SAN Program strategy," said Dr. Claude Lorenson, senior product manager of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft Corp. "We are pleased to have Brocade and Emulex as partners in the Microsoft Storage Pavilion at SNW to showcase the first public demonstration of EZPilot."

EZPilot leverages the unique management capabilities built into Windows Server 2003, including VDS and MPIO and is aligned with the Microsoft Simple SAN program.

About Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.
Brocade offers the industry´s leading intelligent platform for networking storage. The world´s leading systems, applications, and storage vendors have selected Brocade to provide a networking foundation for their SAN solutions. The Brocade SilkWorm family of fabric switches and software is designed to optimize data availability and storage and server resources in the enterprise. Using Brocade solutions, companies can simplify SAN implementation, reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve network and application efficiency. For more information, visit the Brocade Web site at www.brocade.com or contact the company at info@brocade.com.

About Emulex
Emulex Corporation is the world leader in Fibre Channel HBAs and delivers a broad range of intelligent building blocks for next generation storage networking systems. Emulex ranked number 16 in the Deloitte 2004 Technology Fast 50 and most recently received recognition as one of Forbes 200 Best Small Companies.

The world´s leading server and storage providers rely on Emulex HBAs, embedded storage switching and I/O controller products to build reliable, scalable and high performance storage solutions. The Emulex award-winning product families, including its LightPulse™ HBAs and InSpeed™ embedded storage switching products, are based on internally developed ASIC, firmware and software technologies, and offer customers high performance, scalability, flexibility and reduced total cost of ownership. The company´s products have been selected by the world´s leading server and storage providers, including Dell, EMC, Fujitsu Ltd., Fujitsu Siemens, Bull, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance, Quantum Corp., StorageTek, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and Xyratex. In addition, Emulex includes industry leaders Brocade, Computer Associates, Intel, McDATA, Microsoft and VERITAS among its strategic partners. Corporate headquarters are located in Costa Mesa, California. News releases and other information about Emulex Corporation are available at www.emulex.com.