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Brocade and Ciena Team to Extend Power of Networked Storage

Collaboration Expands Enterprise Flexibility in Deploying End-to-End Connectivity Solutions for Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Applications

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade) (Nasdaq: BRCD) and Ciena® Corporation (Nasdaq: CIEN) today announced a plan to provide fully-tested Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions over Metro and Wide Area Networks (MANs/WANs). Based on each company’s best-in-class connectivity technology, these solutions establish a new price/performance industry benchmark for SAN extension solutions used to support enterprise business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) applications.

The alliance provides enterprises with additional options to extend SANs using a wide range of MANs and WANs, and gives organizations the ability to implement BC/DR solutions with the best possible cost structure for each deployment scenario. By combining the market’s leading 4 Gbit/sec SAN directors and switches from Brocade with Ciena’s CN 4200™ FlexSelect™ Advanced Services Platform or CN 2000® Storage Extension Platform, organizations can implement high-performance links between remote sites while maximizing throughput and reducing WAN bandwidth costs. Customers can select the solution that best fits their requirements, and realize superior price/performance benefits in distance extension applications that utilize Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM), SONET/SDH and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) technologies.

Ciena and Brocade’s 4G Fibre Channel (FC) Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) solutions are already deployed in networks operated by an international financial institution and a North American retailer, representing the industry’s first 4 Gbit/sec Fibre Channel SANs multiplexed over the WAN. Utilizing Ciena's CN 4200 and Brocade's 4Gbit/sec SilkWorm 48000 SAN director, the retail customer is load balancing multiple Inter-Switch Links (ISLs) between data centers on a single WDM system. Ciena's FlexSelect Architecture enables the densities by aggregating three 4Gbit/sec channels per wavelength, versus two per wavelength with other solutions.

 “Brocade has a long history of working closely with industry partners to provide best-in-class solutions and building blocks that help IT managers reduce cost and increase flexibility,” said Tom Buiocchi, vice president of worldwide marketing and support at Brocade. “We are very pleased to team with Ciena to enhance our partners’ ability to provide tested and validated connectivity solutions for disaster recovery and business continuity.”

“Today’s companies are increasingly focused on ensuring their networks are accessible and secure across wide geographies. The Ciena-Brocade solutions provide these enterprises the ability to cost-effectively extend their SANs for maximum performance and efficiency,” said Jim Collier, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Ciena. “This relationship is a reflection of our commitment to serving enterprise networks, and will help both Ciena and Brocade meet the growing market demand for storage extension solutions.”

Marty Lans, Senior Director of Storage Networking at EMC Corporation, which partners with both Brocade and Ciena, added, “In today’s enterprise, the relationship between networking and storage often converges, making it a challenge for end users to select the appropriate solutions to ensure network reliability. Collaboration between leading storage and networking vendors like Brocade and Ciena is a positive step to help customers deploy an end-to-end solution for information lifecycle management using a high-availability network designed for business continuity and disaster recovery.”

Brocade, the leading provider of 4 Gbit/sec SAN connectivity solutions, offers the industry’s only family of directors and switches based on a common custom-chip architecture and single operating system. The enterprise-class platforms in this family support the industry’s only frame-level ISL Trunking and Dynamic Path Selection to provide the highest throughput SAN connectivity across data centers or continents. Ciena, the network specialist, offers its FlexSelect Architecture, a standards-based network infrastructure solution that enables unprecedented flexibility, adaptability and manageability in automating delivery and management of any mix of services including Fibre Channel, FICON, ESCON, SONET/SDH, OTN, GbE, 10GbE and video. Utilizing the Brocade solutions in combination with Ciena’s powerful platforms for MAN/WAN connectivity, organizations can achieve exceptional flexibility, scalability and investment protection for applications that rely on extended distance connectivity.