Spectra Logic Announces Scalable Backup Solution for Multiple NetApp Filer Environments.

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 3, 2000

Spectra Logic Partners With Network Appliance, Vixel, Legato and

VERITAS to Deliver a Cost-Effective, Certified SAN Solution to Allow Shared Tape Resources to Network Appliance Customers Without Impacting

LAN Traffic

Spectra Logic Corporation, today announced a scalable backup solution for Network Appliance Filer environments. Utilizing the newest hardware and software management products from Spectra Logic, Vixel, VERITAS and Legato, customers can now take advantage of both Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Fibre Channel-based Storage Area Network (SAN) architectures in a single, affordable solution.

Network Appliance's NAS-based filer products are being used as the primary storage vehicle for many of today's fastest moving companies. This widespread success has created a mission-critical backup problem for companies with multiple filers spread across their enterprise.

&uot;NetApp customers have been approaching us for several years looking for a good method of backing up multiple filers,&uot; said Nathan Thompson, CEO of Spectra Logic. &uot;Through the strong alliance between NetApp, Vixel, Legato, and VERITAS we are now able to offer customers a solution that meets these needs.&uot;

The Network Attached Storage (NAS) Approach

Network Appliance has seen incredible success with its &uot;appliance&uot; approach to storing, managing and accessing the data, which fuels today's information age. Network Appliance filers offer extreme reliability, scalability and simplified manageability built around an NAS architecture. The NAS approach delivers data to corporate end users 7x24x365 without the management burdens of traditional direct-attached storage products. Users access this NAS data utilizing the commonplace LAN topology found in today's growing businesses. As the volume of data grows, NAS architectures have inherent advantages over traditional direct-attached storage methods where primary storage is directly attached to servers via older interconnect technologies such as SCSI and IDE. The ability to add additional storage (scalability), simplified management tasks, and increased data availability are just a few of these advantages which allow IT managers to reduce risks, save money and focus on more important issues in their particular marketplaces.

Storage Area Network (SAN) Architectures

As storage volumes have grown, age-old interface technologies such as SCSI have begun to limit deployments of storage attached to today's computer infrastructures. Fibre Channel is one of today's newest interface technologies. Leveraging the existing knowledge base of SCSI peripherals, Fibre Channel has addressed many of its predecessor's downfalls. Much longer cable lengths, 100 MB/second bandwidth, and a network-like packet-based protocol which allows users to take advantage of switches and hubs to build larger &uot;storage area networks&uot; (SANs), are just a few of the benefits Fibre Channel brings to the table. Fibre Channel is also used to pull traffic off of the LAN, freeing up LAN bandwidth for user of the data. This growth of mission-critical data places an ever-increasing amount of pressure on system administrators to protect it and make it available 100% of the time. Backup strategies based on SCSI peripherals often pulls data from other servers, across the LAN and to locally attached SCSI based tape devices. Although effective in smaller environments, network backup methods have become more challenging in recent years. Tradeoffs of cost vs. bandwidth have made a no-win situation for many customers. Fibre Channel tape libraries allow users to create a SAN that separates the backup data from the LAN.

NAS&AN Data Protection Solution

This announcement follows on the heels of a strategic alliance announcement between Spectra Logic, Network Appliance (NASDAQ: LGTO), Vixel (NASDAQ: VIXL), Legato (NASDAQ: LGTO), VERITAS (NASDAQ: VRTS), and Quantum/ATL (NYSE: DSS). The alliance launch titled, &uot;Multivendor NAS&AN Data Protection Solution&uot; was kicked off with a large event in San Francisco, CA on February 2, 2000. The solution marks the first collaboration between Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Fibre Channel-based Storage Area Network (SAN) vendors yielding a mixed-interface solution encompassing both primary storage and backup resources. This collaboration allows users to access data through NAS appliances (NetApp filers) and efficiently back them up to tape utilizing a SAN. Until now, SAN and NAS camps have been pitted as competing technologies. Users can now benefit from the advantages of both technologies.

About The Solution

Spectra Logic has now demonstrated a SAN-based backup architecture for Network Appliance filer environments utilizing its Fibre Channel-based tape libraries, a Fibre Channel switch from Vixel Corporation, and popular storage management software from VERITAS and Legato. The solution allows multiple filer customers to take advantage of a more cost-effective and manageable backup strategy than was previously available. Utilizing the SAN-based approach, users can build a backup architecture that can be scaled as the number and capacity of their filer pool grows. In the past, each filer added required either its own backup device or created additional backup traffic on the LAN.

Spectra Logic's automated tape libraries are available to meet backup requirements from 375 GB to over 80 TB. Utilizing Sony's AIT tape technology, Spectra Logic's tape libraries offer unmatched storage density, performance and capacity. Spectra Logic's entry-level TreeFrog series offers unprecedented value-often-making automation more affordable than standalone or stacker solutions. The BullFrog family provides an incredible 5.2 Terabytes of storage in only seven inches of rackmount space. The recently announced Gator product family provides incredible storage capacities (from 7.2 TB to 82 TB) and plenty of tape drives (from 2 to 32) to support enterprise datacenter needs. All Spectra Logic libraries are available with a wide range of interfaces (SCSI, Fibre Channel, etc.), electronic barcode reading capabilities, and a best-of-class user interface. These rackmountable designs give the benefit of automation without requiring large amounts of precious datacenter floorspace. Spectra Logic's comprehensive Upgrade Program protects a users' investments for years to come, allowing customers to take advantage of new tape technologies as they become available.

The Alliance

The technical challenges of defining and providing this solution required cooperation from all members of the Alliance. Although all of the individual components are commercially available today, the certified solution required significant cooperation to allow the SAN environment to operate on the backside of the NAS-based filers. Thompson commented, &uot;The successful deployment of a SAN-based infrastructure on the existing Network Appliance architecture was extremely challenging and would never have come to fruition without the high level of partnering we were able to pull together for this.&uot;

The Alliance Partners and their associated products are as follows:

Network Appliance Corp. (NASDAQ: NTAP), Sunnyvale, CA - Network Appliance filers allow users to consolidate data onto Network Appliance(TM) file servers, commonly called filers. Filers reduce the cost and complexity of enterprise data management making the data high availability, very scalable, and easy to manage.

Vixel Corp. (NASDAQ: VIXL), Bothell, WA - Vixel is a leading developer, manufacturer, and supplier of Fibre Channel interconnect products. The VIXEL 8100 Fibre Channel switch offers complete Fibre Channel fabric support, true line-speed switching, and the flexibility of a GBIC-based design. Vixel's innovative Stealth mode option is one of the underlying technologies, which made the solution possible.

Legato Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: LGTO), Palo Alto, CA - Legato is a worldwide leader in the enterprise storage management software market. Helping companies leverage their business-critical, corporate data assets, Legato's products enable &uot;Information Continuance,&uot; a seamless approach to the movement, management and protection of data throughout an enterprise.

VERITAS Software Corp. (NASDAQ: VRTS), Mountain View, CA - As the leading provider of enterprise-class application storage management software, VERITAS(R) Software ensures the continuous availability of business-critical information by delivering integrated, cross-platform storage management software solutions. VERITAS Software's NetBackup product was utilized in the solution.

Spectra Logic Corp., Boulder, CO - Established in 1979, Spectra Logic has emerged to be the industry's leading automation provider for Sony's AIT tape technology. The company's award-winning products protect corporate data worldwide. Spectra Logic's automated tape libraries range in capacity from 375 GB to over 80 TB with a wide range of interface technologies (Fibre Channel is featured in this solution).

Solution Pricing and Availability

The SAN-based solution was demonstrated at the &uot;Multivendor NAS&AN Data Protection Solution&uot; event in San Francisco on February 2nd. The solution is shipping to selected Beta sites now and will be officially released in Q2 2000. This new SAN-based backup solution for Network Appliance filers is available through a Certified group of VAR partners worldwide. These VARs are knowledgeable about the NetApp environment and the necessary SAN products required to fully install and support customers.

For more information on the solution, its components, and the Alliance, visit Spectra Logic's web site at - www.spectralogic.com/netapp

Spectra Logic Corporation is a leading manufacturer of high-performance tape automation products providing mission-critical data protection for companies worldwide. Spectra Logic tape library products offer capacities from 60 Gigabytes to hundreds of Terabytes. The Boulder, Colorado-based company's products operate on a broad range of platforms and utilize a wide range of interface configurations to take advantage of rapidly evolving SAN, NAS, and direct-attached storage architectures. For more information, contact Spectra Logic by phone at [phone], or visit the company's web site at http://www.spectralogic.com.

The Spectra Logic logo is a trademark of Spectra Logic Corporation. All other trademarks are properties of their respective owners.