29/09-05   -   Pressmeddelande

Brocade Wide Area File Services Solution updated to support stackable services and Microsoft Branch Office Initiative

New Release of Tapestry WAFS Provides High-Performance File Access and Streamlines IT for Remote Locations


SAN JOSE, Calif. — September 28, 2005 —Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade®) (Nasdaq: BRCDE), today announced the release of a new version of Brocade Tapestry Wide Area File Services (WAFS), which includes a range of new capabilities to further optimize branch office IT efficiencies. The new release of Tapestry WAFS complements other Microsoft branch office solutions by leveraging its ability to provide high-performance access of files across the Wide Area Network (WAN) for e-mail attached files, while eliminating the need to send multiple copies to each remote site. It also consolidates print, web, and management services. Brocade is demonstrating Tapestry WAFS in kiosk #606-I in the Microsoft Partner Pavilion at the Storage Decisions conference, which runs September 28-30 at the New York City Hilton Hotel.

Based on the only Microsoft Windows WAFS technology available today, Brocade Tapestry WAFS is designed to help enterprises save time and money by enabling real-time collaboration, greater storage consolidation, and more efficient management of corporate files. The new solution is also designed to aid in corporate compliance and security by ensuring that single, centrally controlled versions of files are maintained and backed up reliably. Tapestry WAFS is the only solution today that optimizes email attachments providing each user faster access while maintaining a single centrally controlled copy and reducing WAN traffic by eliminating the need to send multiple copies out to each remote location.

"In distributed organizations, nearly one third of the IT budget is invested in servicing branch offices, so delivering cost-effective solutions that increase productivity and performance at remote locations is critical to meeting operational goals," said Radhesh Balakrishnan, Group Product Manager of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. “Brocade’s Tapestry WAFS appliance provides significant value-add beyond just increasing the speed of file access from remote servers."

About Tapestry WAFS based on Windows Storage Server 2003 Tapestry WAFS is designed to take advantage of the rich set of storage technologies that the Windows Storage Server 2003 platform enables, and provides the ability to deliver data over the Wide Area Network using key security features inherent in the platform. Brocade worked with Microsoft to ensure that Tapestry WAFS is compatible with Windows Storage Server 2003 R2, the next version of Windows Storage Server which Microsoft disclosed yesterday, September 27, 2005. (See Microsoft Launches System Center Data Protection Manager A part of its Universal Distributed Storage Vision). Branch offices can benefit from both the new Distributed File System Replication (DFS-R) that is included in Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 and from Brocade Tapestry WAFS, which allows remote offices to use centrally located and consolidated file servers with one copy of the data

“Large organizations often have more than a hundred branch offices, and there are more than a million remote/branch offices in the United States," said Brian Garrett, industry analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. “These organizations can save billions of dollars by centralizing data management, which reduces the need for IT staffing and server proliferation in remote offices and simplifies tasks such as back-up and compliance adherence providing immediate cost savings."

“We are very pleased to work with Microsoft in its effort to streamline IT processes for companies that have multiple remote locations," said Tom Buiocchi, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing and Support at Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. “We’ve already seen organizations improve performance by as much as 50 times with Tapestry WAFS implementations, while at the same time realizing a return on investment in six to nine months through hard dollar savings and user productivity improvements."

In addition to the WAFS demonstration at Storage Decisions, the product will also be demonstrated in booth #P21 at next month’s Storage Networking World Conference in Orlando, Florida. In Europe Tapestry WAFS will be demonstrated in conjunction with Microsoft at Storage Expo in London in October and at IT Forum in Barcelona, Spain in November.

About Brocade Communications Systems, Inc.
Brocade delivers the industry’s leading platforms and solutions for intelligently connecting, managing, and optimizing IT resources in shared storage environments. The world’s premier systems, server, and storage providers offer the Brocade SilkWorm family of fabric switches and software as the foundation for SAN solutions in organizations of all sizes. In addition, the Brocade Tapestry family of application infrastructure solutions extends the ability to proactively manage and optimize application and information resources across the enterprise. Using Brocade solutions, organizations are better positioned to reduce cost, manage complexity, and satisfy business compliance requirements through optimized use and management of their application infrastructures. For more information, visit the Brocade Web site at www.brocadecom or contact the company at info@brocade.com.

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Brocade, the Brocade B weave logo, Fabric OS, Secure Fabric OS, and SilkWorm are registered trademarks and Tapestry is a trademark of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., 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.