McDATA Delivers SMI-S; Open Interface Gives Customers and Partners Access To McDATA Fabric Intelligence

McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT), aleading provider of storage networking solutions, today announced theavailability of its Storage Management Initiative Specification(SMI-S) Interface, delivering a Common Information Model (CIM)provider for McDATA Intrepid directors and Sphereon fabric switches.McDATA's SMI-S Interface is certified as SNIA-CTP v1.1 compliant. Itcan be utilized by third-party management applications with an SMI-Scertified client to discover, monitor and configure McDATA devices andwill immediately be leveraged by HP's SMI-S client and in future byIBM and others.

"McDATA is among the first switch vendors to release an SMI-Sprovider, demonstrating our ongoing commitment to delivering open,standards-based products. End users are the ultimate beneficiaries ofSMI-S compliant solutions with improved manageability, security andnetwork reliability," said Wayne Morris, senior vice president ofworldwide marketing, McDATA.

"Purchasing decisions today are influenced by interoperability andsystem manageability, so the majority of organizations prefer todeploy solutions that are based on open standards," said FrankHarbist, vice president, storage software, StorageWorks Division, HP."HP System Insight Manager and HP Storage Essentials support McDATA'sSMI-S standards-based interface to allow customers to seamlesslycreate and integrate multi-vendor environments and enable switch-levelmonitoring and configuration. Customer can benefit from the greaterreturn on investment that results from improved network visibility andsimplified infrastructure management."

McDATA SMI-S Interface Release 1.0 provides an SMI-S-basedintegration platform where third party applications can leverage thenetwork and fabric intelligence of Enterprise Fabric ConnectivityManager (EFCM).

"We plan to integrate IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center withMcDATA environments utilizing SMI-S," said James Gruener, TivoliStorage Market Manager, IBM. "Such an integration would be directed atgiving customers enhanced ability to manage their SANs from theapplication to the spindle and everything in between."

The Storage Networking Industry Association's Storage ManagementInitiative was created to develop and standardize interoperablestorage management technologies. SMI-S allows storage vendors totarget development efforts on a single standard interface so end-userscan lower the total cost of ownership as management, integration ofresources and interoperability improve network-wide.

"The SNIA-CTP program continues to evolve through the cooperationof vendors like McDATA, and others developing tests for fabric andswitches for SMI-S v1.1 conformance testing," said Ed von Adelung,chairman of the SNIA Storage Management Forum. "These new tests are anintegral step in bringing standards conformance to the marketplace andoffering end users more flexible choices in their selection ofproducts--choices that offer management interoperability to addressthe complexity of managing storage in the data center."

About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)

McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT) is the leading provider ofstorage networking solutions, helping customers build, globallyconnect, optimize and centrally manage data infrastructures acrossSAN, MAN and WAN environments. With nearly 25 years experiencedeveloping SAN products, services and solutions, McDATA is the trustedpartner in the world's largest data centers, connecting more thantwo-thirds of all networked data.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements about expected futureevents that are forward-looking and subject to risks anduncertainties. Readers are urged to consider statements that includethe terms "believes", "belief", "expects", "plans", "objectives","estimates", "anticipates", "intends", "targets", or the like to beuncertain and forward-looking. Factors that could cause actual resultsto differ and vary materially from expectations include, but are notlimited to, McDATA's relationships with EMC, IBM and Hitachi DataSystems and the level of their orders, aggressive price competition bynumerous other SAN and IP switch suppliers, OEM qualification of ournew products - such as the Intrepid 10000 Director, integration ofCNT's sales and marketing functions, manufacturing constraints,constraints in obtaining third party product for resale and other riskfactors that are disclosed in McDATA's filings with the Securities andExchange Commission. These cautionary statements by McDATA should notbe construed as exhaustive or as any admission regarding the adequacyof disclosures made by McDATA. All cautionary statements should beread as being applicable to all forward-looking statements whereverthey appear. McDATA does not undertake any obligation to publiclyupdate or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a resultof new information, future events or otherwise.