Customers Recognize Value of McDATA's Global Enterprise Data Center Concept.

BROOMFIELD, Colo. -- Key Layers in Tiered Storage Architectures, McDATA's Intrepid Directors Enable Customers Worldwide to Achieve the Global Enterprise Data Center, a Globally Connected, Secure Data Center with 24/7 Availability

Customers of McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT), a leading provider of data infrastructure solutions, continue to deploy Intrepid(R) 10000 and 6140 Directors as key layers of tiered storage networking strategies and to achieve Global Enterprise Data Center benefits. The tiered network architecture is industry analyst supported; according to a recent ESG whitepaper written by Nancy Marrone-Hurly: "As SAN networks mature, the base architecture requirements are changing. Just as Ethernet and telecommunications networks evolved toward hierarchical/tiered implementations, FC SANs need to adopt this same architecture in order to address evolving scalability, performance and pricing requirements. McDATA offers a full portfolio of FC and interconnect switch solutions that enable organizations to implement end-to-end tiered SAN architectures."

"In the five years we have had McDATA's directors and switches, we have never experienced an outage. It is significant to mention that we have done core to edge tiering of hardware for years with McDATA products; down the road I can envision the Intrepid 10000 at the backbone of our network," said Bob Venable, manager of enterprise systems, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. "Leveraging the efficiencies from a tiered networking architecture and applying these to a concept called the Global Enterprise Data Center; it summarizes what enterprise managers such as myself are working to achieve," said Bob Venable, manager of enterprise systems, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

The tiered network architecture of the Global Enterprise Data Center is comprised of a core backbone while the Intrepid 6140 complements and extends the backbone as the cost-effective distribution layer of the tiered solution, thus providing solid investment protection for current McDATA customers. The Intrepid 6140 is an important part of McDATA's director strategy and will have more than 40 additional enhancements throughout 2005, such as Zone & Role Based FlexPars to increase fabric stability and harden network security. Customers will also be able to non-disruptively upgrade these platforms to 10Gb/s and 4Gb/s line speeds as the line cards become available. Small and large IT organizations alike depend on the reliability, scalability and investment protection that McDATA's Intrepid line of directors provides.

"Our decision to go with McDATA was based on a couple of reasons. First, McDATA is a recognized industry leader with a proven track record; we have been considering them for a few years. We also trust McDATA's roadmap and where the company is going. When we were finally in a position to make a decision, we went with McDATA because they could enable us to manage, consolidate and simplify our previously unmanageable environment with a highly available and scalable solution using Intrepid directors," said Don Whitlow, manager of enterprise computing, Quad/Graphics.

McDATA's Intrepid 6140 plays a prominent role by providing connectivity to the distribution layer for larger networks or as a core network device in smaller SAN deployments. With the current capabilities and planned enhancements, IT organizations can leverage existing investments and migrate infrastructures to the Global Enterprise Data Center.

"While we reviewed other vendors' director class switches, we found McDATA's Intrepid 6140 to have the widest breadth as it relates to the solution we are implementing, including FICON and Open Systems. Another consideration for our decision was the resiliency of the McDATA director class switches; we felt it is the best choice for all of these environments. Plus, my past positive experiences with both mainframe and open systems products helped support the final decision," said Tom Becchetti, senior capacity planner for MoneyGram.

McDATA's vision for a Global Enterprise Data Center is based on increasing demand for tiered storage networking and the automation, efficiencies and cost-savings enabled by this architecture. McDATA's full portfolio of products are complementary and fulfill requirements of the backbone, distribution and access layer, enabling customers to cost effectively consolidate networks, manage data and increase performance, security and availability.

"McDATA continues to deliver capabilities our customers need today as well as investing in developing the functionality our customers will need tomorrow," said Wayne Morris, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, McDATA. "The tiered storage network is a key element of our Global Enterprise Data Center concept, which enables our customers to optimize their data infrastructures. Building on this strategy, we continue to develop our Intrepid directors to satisfy our customers' current and future requirements."

About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)

McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT) is the only data infrastructure solutions provider that can deliver a Global Enterprise Data Center -- a globally connected, centrally managed and highly optimized data network. With more than 20 years of storage networking experience, McDATA is trusted in the world's largest data centers, connecting more than two-thirds of all networked data and enabling information access anytime, anywhere.

Forward-Looking Statements 

This press release contains statements about expected future events that are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Readers are urged to consider statements that include the terms "believes", "belief", "expects", "plans", "objectives", "estimates", "anticipates", "intends", "targets", or the like to be uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that could cause actual results to differ and vary materially from expectations include, but are not limited to, McDATA's relationships with EMC, IBM and HDS and the level of their orders, aggressive price competition by numerous other SAN and IP switch suppliers, OEM qualification of our new products, manufacturing constraints and other risk factors that are disclosed in McDATA's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These cautionary statements by McDATA should not be construed as exhaustive or as any admission regarding the adequacy of disclosures made by McDATA. All cautionary statements should be read as being applicable to all forward-looking statements wherever they appear. McDATA does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.