Brocade Delivers Open Fabric Management Based on Latest Industry Standards; Brocade Announces General Availability of Open Fabric Management Services to Development Partners.

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade(R)) , the world's leading provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), announced today the general availability of the Brocade Open Fabric Management Services for the Brocade Silkworm(R) family of high performance fabric switches and Directors.

Brocade Open Fabric Management Services is Brocade's first production release of an external management agent for Brocade switches compliant with the version 1.0.2 of the SNIA Storage Management Initiative Specification (SMI-S). SMI-S has been adopted and endorsed by most storage vendors to help efficiently manage heterogeneous storage infrastructures and is generally seen as the standards base for future SAN management environments. Storage management products that are SMI-S conformant aim to deliver benefits such as reduced cost and complexity of SAN management, improved interoperability, and increased investment protection to end users.

"Storage Networking users understand that the value of open standards -- for both users and vendors -- stems from the user's ability to select the most suitable products for a particular application set and then easily integrate those products into their computing environments," said John Webster, Senior Analyst and Founder of Data Mobility Group. "By adopting SMI-S, Brocade shows its desire to provide an open and industry accepted way to integrate their switching environment with storage devices and management applications."

The Brocade external management agent provides extensive support for management of physical SAN components, and management features defined in SMI-S v1.0.2. These include support for switch, server and fabric profiles, sub-profiles for basic and enhanced zoning control, as well as support for the Fabric Device Management Interface (FDMI), and blade processors. It fully supports the SMI-S industry standard set of interfaces designed to make it easier for storage hardware and management software from different vendors to work together. This enables better interoperability and management of the many devices in a SAN.

In addition, Brocade Open Fabric Management Services and the Brocade family of Silkworm fabric switches and Directors were rigorously tested against the SMI-S specification through the SNIA Conformance Testing Program (SNIA-CTP). All of the products were awarded conformance approval by the SNIA, including the new set of Brocade switches and directors being announced this month. Products that pass the SNIA-CTP for SMI-S conformance demonstrate a consistent interpretation of the specification so customers have more confidence in the technology they are purchasing and can reduce their risk in deploying storage management solutions.

"As a leading provider of SMI-S and CIM-built storage area management software and an active leader in SNIA, we are pleased that Brocade is offering a complete set of SMI-S interfaces to achieve interoperability," said Tom Rose, vice president of marketing, AppIQ. "We are enhancing AppIQ StorageAuthority Suite to support Brocade Open Fabric Management Services, and will continue to leverage Brocade's robust programming interfaces and partner development program to deliver tightly integrated solutions that simplify SAN management and benefit our common customers and OEM partners."

"Brocade is deeply committed to participating and leading in the development of industry standards," said Tom Buiocchi, Brocade VP of Marketing. "Brocade has been a long-term committed member in the industry team that created the Bluefin storage management specification, later adopted as the SNIA SMI-S specification. We are delighted to see the culmination of this industry-led effort result in strong industry standards that benefit the end user community."

Brocade is a charter member of the SNIA Storage Management Initiative and the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) and has been a significant contributor to the development of SMI-S and CIM (Common Information Model), participating in each SMI plugfest and SMI LAB demonstration staged by the SNIA. Brocade will exhibit Brocade Open Fabric Management Services in the SNIA SMI LAB demonstration, a part of the Solutions and Interoperability Showcase at Storage Networking World in April 5-8 2004 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Brocade Open Fabric Management Services is immediately available to participants in Brocade's Partner Development Program. For more information on the Partner Development Program please visit http://www.brocade.com/partners/developers.jsp .

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(R) family of fabric switches and software is designed to optimize data availability and storage and server resources in the enterprise. Using Brocade solutions, companies can simplify the implementation of storage area networks, reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve network and application efficiency. For more information, visit the Brocade website at http://www.brocade.com/ or contact the company at [e-mail].

NOTE: Brocade, the Brocade B weave logo, 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.

CONTACT: media, Lee Davis, [phone], or [e-mail], or investors, Shirley Stacy, [phone], or [e-mail], both of Brocade; or Wendy Lewis of FS Communications, [phone], or [e-mail], for Brocade

Web site: http://www.brocade.com/