NetApp Boosts SAN Interoperability

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP), a leader in advanced networked storage solutions, and the industrys fastest growing fibre channel (FC) SAN vendor¹ continues to enhance its SAN interoperability and broad switch portfolio by announcing the worldwide availability of the Brocade 5000 Fabric Switch. The Brocade 5000 is the first switch to support connectivity to native Brocade Fabric OS® (fabric operating system) or Brocade M-Enterprise OS (McDATA OS). It also provides the lowest power dissipation for a midrange switch, with savings of 20 percent over the previous Brocade switch models and 76 percent over competing products, contributing to a lower total cost of ownership.

The Brocade 5000 provides NetApp customers greater ease in SAN deployment and management by allowing non-disruptive expansion of existing SAN fabrics with existing management tools that deliver enhanced fabric-wide performance. Customers can also benefit from increased switch to switch bandwidth (up to 32 Gbp/s) and dynamic path selection, which allows customers to balance loads across inter-switch links (ISL’s), also known as “trunks.” Customers can “trunk” distances as far as 250 km, allowing them to connect more data centers and access more data with higher speeds and greater availability. Additionally, eight virtual channels provide quality of service capabilities to help customers optimize the performance of their applications, while ISL trunking optimizes performance and simplifies the management of multi-switch SAN fabrics that delivers fabric-wide performance enhancements.

“Brocade and NetApp are aligned in our commitment to help IT management succeed in the next generation of networked storage solutions by providing customers with improved SAN interoperability and a lower total cost of ownership,” said Tom Buiocchi, Brocade Vice President of Worldwide Marketing. “The advanced capabilities of the NetApp® storage systems coupled with the new Brocade 5000 switch provide customers with industry-leading interoperability and investment protection.”

Network Appliance Inc.