Amdahl Forms Alliance with McDATA to Provide Complete Fibre Channel Storage Solutions for the Data Center.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 13, 1998--

Amdahl includes the McDATA ED-5000 Enterprise Fibre Channel

Director and EFC Management in its Storage Area Network Strategy

Amdahl Corporation today announced an alliance with McDATA Corporation to provide complete, high-availability, Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN) solutions for the data center. Under the terms of the alliance, Amdahl will add McDATA's industry leading ED-5000 Enterprise Fibre Channel Director and EFC Management software to its SAN strategy. Data center customers can contain escalating costs and improve the manageability of their growing IS resources with features such as server and storage consolidation, any-to-any connectivity between servers and storage, extended cabling distances, fault tolerant operation, proactive service capabilities, centralized connectivity management and the highest aggregate bandwidth available in the market today.

The McDATA Director is the only Fibre Channel switching device that offers high-availability operation with robust centralized management and dynamic connectivity between 32 ports. Combined with Amdahl storage subsystems such as LVS(TM) and Spectris(TM), along with Global Information Sharing(TM) software in thoroughly tested SAN configurations, the Amdahl solution lowers overhead costs dramatically by increasing storage management productivity over decentralized server-dependent storage environments. These capabilities make the Amdahl solution the most cost-effective and robust SAN solution available.

"This alliance positions Amdahl as a leader in the SAN marketplace by providing data center customers with a concrete solution for deploying SANs that lower costs and dramatically improve management productivity," said George Mele, director of storage marketing, Amdahl Corporation. "We are particularly pleased to be working with an industry leader like McDATA, a company that sets the industry benchmark with its Fibre Channel Director, which is key to SAN robustness and functionality."

"We are delighted to team up with Amdahl, a company recognized for years of success in providing data center professionals with enterprise-class storage solutions. This new Fibre Channel SAN implementation combines the best of both companies - Amdahl's high-end storage solution expertise and McDATA's market leadership in providing enterprise-class switching products. Together, McDATA and Amdahl will offer corporate IT customers a robust storage solution that more than meets their critical high-availability needs," stated Michael Klayko, executive vice president of McDATA sales and marketing.

The Amdahl SAN solution provides customers with the only fully redundant, highly available, data center-class switching solution offered today. Included in Amdahl's SAN solution strategy is a full range of deployment and maintenance services with the same high-level of expertise and customer support that has long been Amdahl's hallmark.

This Fibre Channel Storage solution with McDATA is yet another example of the Amdahl tradition of bringing robust, enterprise-class technology solutions and services to its customers by providing products and services that help customers gain a competitive advantage in their industries.

About McDATA

With more than 700,000 fiber optic ports shipped, McDATA is the leading supplier of enterprise-class directors and switches to major server and storage vendors. McDATA is the only company to develop an enterprise-class Fibre Channel Director for open systems and furnish enterprise fabric connectivity management for a complete family of connectivity products. McDATA FabricPaks provide end-to-end, packaged solutions to help businesses implement enterprise storage networks using Fibre Channel technology. Headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, McDATA has more than 250 employees worldwide. Information about McDATA products and solutions can be found at http://www.mcdata.com or by calling 1-800-545-5773. Multimedia summary at http://play.rbn.com/?prnews/prnews/demand/McDATA_2.rm

About Amdahl

Amdahl Corporation is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited, a leading provider of information technology products and solutions for the global marketplace with revenues of $37.7 billion in the fiscal year ended March 31, 1998. Amdahl provides integrated enterprise computing solutions designed to meet the needs of the leading, most compute-intensive environments around the world. Amdahl has over 25 years of experience with large-scale computing solutions and client/server technology. The company supports heterogeneous architectures found in mission-critical customer environments that blend MVS(R), Windows NT(R), and UNIX(R) operating systems. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Amdahl combines hardware and software products and services methods with world class offerings to create customized solutions that help clients gain a competitive advantage in their industries.

For the Year 2000 compliance status of this offering and any others, visit the Amdahl Year 2000 Web site at: www.amdahl.com/y2k

Amdahl is a registered trademark, Spectris, Global Information Sharing and LVS are trademarks of Amdahl Corporation. McDATA and the McDATA logo are registered trademarks and FabricPak is a trademark of McDATA Corporation. MVS is a registered trademark of International Business Machine Corporation. Windows NT is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, licensed exclusively (except in Japan where such license is non-exclusive) through X/Open Company, Limited. All other trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Amdahl news releases are available on the Internet at www.amdahl.com , the Amdahl Corporation home page. The Amdahl site provides current, in-depth information on Amdahl offerings and solutions for enterprise computing.