New EMC Connectrix SAN Switch from Brocade Delivers High Performance

San Jose, Calif. and Hopkinton, - February 07, 2005 -

Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade®) (Nasdaq: BRCD), a leading provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), and EMC Corporation, the world leader in information storage and management, today announced the general availability of the EMC® Connectrix DS-4100B SAN switch solution. With a 4 gigabit per-second (Gbit/sec) Fibre Channel data transfer rate and innovative ports-on-demand scalability, the Connectrix DS-4100B provides high performance, superior investment protection and backward compatibility.

The Connectrix DS-4100B is available in a base 16-port configuration that can be non-disruptively scaled with 8-port upgrade licenses to 24 and 32 ports.

"This new 4 Gbit/sec SAN switching technology from Brocade helps EMC expand the breadth of its information lifecycle management solutions," said Tom Joyce, EMC Senior Director of Storage Platforms Marketing. "The EMC Connectrix DS-4100B brings next-generation data rates and pay-as-you-grow scalability to today's storage networks."

Based on the Brocade SilkWorm 4100 family of SAN switches, the Connectrix DS-4100B provides twice the data transfer rate of other switches used today. It offers flexibility for midsized organizations, where it can act as the core switch in a growing fabric, and for large enterprise applications where it can feed data from the edge to a larger SAN director.

The SilkWorm 4100 family features an industry-leading set of enterprise-class features, including redundant and hot-swappable power supplies and fans; hot-swappable SFP media; hot code loading and activation; extensive enterprise-level security; fabric management; and ease-of-use features. Each of the up to 32 ports is auto-sensing for data link speeds of 1, 2, or 4 Gbit/sec, offering full forward and backward compatibility with the thousands of installed EMC and Brocade SANs in place today.

"We're very pleased that EMC is offering our latest technology as a high-value, high-performance addition to the EMC Connectrix family of storage solutions," said Tom Buiocchi, Vice President of Marketing at Brocade. "EMC and Brocade are both focused on improving SAN technology and providing IT professionals with cost-effective and highly reliable storage infrastructure systems to efficiently manage data throughout its lifecycle."

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 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 SAN implementation, reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve network and application efficiency. For more information, visit the Brocade Web site at www.brocade.com or contact the company at info@brocade.com.

About EMC

EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC ) is the world leader in products, services, and solutions for information storage and management that help organizations extract the maximum value from their information, at the lowest total cost, across every point in the information lifecycle. Information about EMC products and services can be found at www.EMC.com.