25/04-05   -   Pressemeldinger

Improved SAN Health Analysis Tool Available on Brocade Connect Web Portal

Enhanced SAN Health Utility Joins New Zone Size Estimator Tool as Key Resources for European Customers

GENEVA, 25 April, 2005-Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade®) (Nasdaq: BRCD), a leading provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), today announced that it has upgraded the free SAN Health software utility available on the Brocade Connect global customer Web portal.
SAN Health is a free utility designed to securely audit and analyse SAN environments and to recommend changes that will help save time, effort, and money. Recent enhancements to SAN Health include:
- An improved user interface for automatically scheduling periodic audits
- Easier ways to add multiple fabrics and build larger audit sets
- An improved display format, visible activity log, and help screens
- The ability to run in unattended mode with automatic e-mailing of captured data to a designated recipient
- Support for all Brocade products, as well as mixed SAN vendor environments

- SAN Health now enables users to extract even more productivity and financial return from their storage networks, said Ian Whiting, Vice President, Brocade EMEA and Latin America. - The changes add even more value to Brocade Connect, which more and more of our European customers are using on a daily basis.

New Zone Size Estimator Facilitates Planning
Brocade has also launched a tool called Zone Size Estimator on Brocade Connect. This tool enables customers to project the growth of their zone database as their SAN grows, helping them plan for new large fabric implementations. Zone Size Estimator is easy to use: Customers simply enter information including the number of zone configurations and number of worldwide names, and the Zone Size Estimator calculates the estimated size of their zone database. The tool includes useful information about maximum size limits for zone databases and instructions on how to find out current zone database size.

Brocade Connects Thousands of Users Worldwide
Brocade Connect is a technical Web portal and online community for the installed base of Brocade customers. It has 16,000 members worldwide - including more than 4,000 in EMEA and Latin America - and continues to grow steadily. Designed to educate end users, the site provides technical and community content and tools not available on www.brocade.com. The portal is organized into three sections:


Connect with Users features a message board that lets users across different market sectors engage in discussions and share SAN experiences and best practices. In addition, users can add value to their SAN investment by uploading or downloading scripts and utilities posted by other users.
Connect with Brocade informs users of special offers, such as free SAN seminars, events, and certification. A unique feature is the AP1 Scripting Toolkit that allows users to automate and manage their SAN by customising scripts.
Tech Resource Centre houses the documentation library containing an archive of feature articles, how-to guides, industry reports, product manuals, and interoperability information. Users can also benefit from free access to technical Webinars and other practical downloads.

Brocade Connect users also benefit from a new electronic newsletter that alerts them to updates and upgrades to the portal.

Brocade Connect can be accessed at: www.brocade.com/connect.

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 optimise 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.

Brocade, the Brocade B weave logo, Fabric OS, Secure Fabric OS, and SilkWorm are registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the United States and/or in other countries. FICON is a registered trademark of IBM Corporation in the U.S. and 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.