Lumenare and APCON Announce Joint Marketing Partnership.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 25, 2003

Lumenare Networks, developer of applications that enable service providers and equipment vendors to build automated lab and test infrastructures, today announced a joint marketing partnership with APCON, Inc., a leading provider of network solutions and IntellaPatch Physical Layer Switches for Fibre Channel, Ethernet, and SONET. Under the agreement, Lumenare and APCON will jointly market their products to Storage Area Network (SAN), Telecom, and enterprise software testing laboratories.

"We selected Lumenare as a partner because they have demonstrated leadership and innovation in the emerging market for automated test laboratory management products," said Mark Holmes, APCON National Sales Manager. "The combination of APCON's physical layer switching technology with Lumenare's test resource optimization software immediately reduces the cost of software, hardware and complex system testing and benefits an ever growing range of industries."

"Our customers are asking us to help them address the growing cost and complexity of managing their testing laboratories," said Jim Smith, Lumenare's Vice President of Sales. "Lumenare's test topology manager, LabMagic, and test execution manager, TestExpert, can fully utilize APCON's physical layer switching technology, dramatically improving the utilization of testing laboratory assets and reducing the overall time and cost of testing."

Brian Garrett, Technical Director of the Enterprise Storage Group Lab, commented, "Managing engineering development and QA testing for storage and SAN products can be a major problem. From what we understand, Lumenare and APCON have created an extremely compelling solution that combines their technologies giving organizations a set of tools that will allow them to implement a truly automated lab testing environment. The potential benefits are minimizing infrastructure costs, making more efficient use of people resources, reducing time to market, and improving product quality."

APCON IntellaPatch Physical Layer Switches are ideal for test labs where engineers need to dynamically control physical topologies of SAN environments. The switches significantly improve test lab efficiency by allowing devices to be shared across multiple test beds and test labs. APCON IntellaPatch Switches support remote access and scripted test routines such as reconfiguration of devices in the fabric, link failure simulation, analyzer sharing and multicasting traffic generators.

Lumenare's LabMagic allows the test designer to define, catalog, and maintain an unlimited set of network test topologies utilizing any device in the test laboratory's inventory. When combined with Lumenare's TestExpert, both local and remote users can access any device in the test laboratory and schedule tests that automatically configure the required test network topology.

APCON's physical layer switches and Lumenare's test management technology work together to provide 'demand-driven' testing; complex topologies are automatically realized only as needed for the execution of a scheduled test, maximizing the utilization of the operational and capital resources of the testing lab.

About APCON, Inc.

APCON, Inc. develops high-speed network hardware to improve the flexibility of enterprise-wide networks and interoperability labs. APCON customers include Cisco Systems, Dell Computer, IBM, JNI, Lockheed Martin, McData, and QLogic. The APCON product line includes IntellaPatch Physical Layer Switches, SCSI switches, extenders and boosters. APCON physical layer switches support a range of protocols, including Fibre Channel, SONET/SDH, and Ethernet up to 10 Gb/s data rates. APCON SCSI switches and boosters support up to Ultra320 data rates. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, APCON also maintains offices in Texas and South Carolina. For more information, please visit APCON online at www.apcon.com.

About Lumenare Networks

Lumenare Networks provides software and services that maximize the efficiency, utilization and scalability of testing laboratories. The LabMagic and TestExpert products dynamically manage test configurations, optimizing both human and capital resources, and increasing the quality and repeatability of results. These products have been used in SAN labs, Telecom labs, and large OSS software test labs, as well as computer labs for testing server-based applications. Lumenare Networks, headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA, is a privately held corporation with development centers in Sunnyvale and Delhi, India. For more information, please visit Lumenare online at www.lumenare.com.