NetApp Positioned in Visionaries Quadrant for Storage Resource Management and SAN Management Software.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP) today announced it has debuted in the "Visionaries" quadrant in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Storage Resource Management (SRM) and SAN Management Software, 20071. According to Gartner, "Each vendor's completeness of vision was evaluated based on its ability to convincingly articulate its future product direction and demonstrate innovation in meeting customer needs, enabling the vendor to more effectively compete in the market. The credibility of the vendor's vision was weighed against its past ability to execute against previously stated plans. Market understanding is the guiding factor in new product development to ensure that the product engineered meets customer needs. Managing the complexity of storage environments requires innovative approaches that will distinguish leaders and delight customers."

"We believe this report validates that storage resource and SAN management capabilities have become increasingly important and strategic for enterprise storage purchase decisions," said Elisa Steele, vice president of corporate marketing at Network Appliance. "Further, we think the position in the 'Visionaries' Quadrant coupled with our 'Leaders' position in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Midrange Enterprise Disk Arrays2, indicates the market reality that global enterprises have become far more savvy, looking beyond large, complex, and expensive frame arrays to support their enterprise data management needs. NetApp SRM and SAN management solutions deliver an integrated approach to data management, providing customers with the highest levels of management simplicity, utilization, and performance."

The enhanced NetApp[R] Manageability Software family is the only data management toolset that actively manages data from a business perspective. It automates, integrates, centralizes, and simplifies core workflows across IT administrator domains, enabling improved data availability, enhanced productivity, and increased storage utilization. The NetApp Manageability Software family gives IT administrators the tools they need to get rid of the storage "help desk" and allow storage administrators to focus more on activities that drive value for the business. In addition, it empowers system administrators, DBAs, and application administrators to manage their own data within the controls set by the storage administrator. The combination dramatically simplifies existing IT workflows and increases the flexibility of the entire IT operation.

NetApp FC SAN solutions help customers better adapt to changing data center needs, achieve superior data management, and experience the lowest TCO. This is made possible through instantaneous FC SAN provisioning and data recovery; leading 4Gb performance and support; tight integration with director, switch, and host bus adapter (HBA) products from Brocade, Cisco, Emulex, McData, and QLogic; SAN attach kits for host and OS support; and a comprehensive interoperability matrix that provides support for all major open systems computing platforms.

The Gartner research note is available from Gartner at www.gartner.com. The Magic Quadrants are copyrighted 2006 and 2007 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner's analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the Visionary quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Network Appliance

Network Appliance is a world leader in unified storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has delivered technology, product, and partner firsts to simplify data management. Information about Network Appliance[TM] solutions and services is available at www.netapp.com.

NetApp is a registered trademark and Network Appliance is a trademark of Network Appliance, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.

1Magic Quadrant for Storage Resource Management and SAN Management Software, 2007, by Dave Russell and Robert E. Passmore, March 19, 2007.

2Magic Quadrant for Midrange Enterprise Disk Arrays, 2H06, by Stanley Zaffos, April Adams and Roger W. Cox, December 13, 2006.