Brocade Steers Audi AG Onto Right Data Track

Automotive Manufacturer Consolidates Storage Infrastructure With SilkWorm Fibre Channel Directors

SAN JOSE, Calif. and MUNICH, Germany, Sept. 8 -- Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade(R)) , the world's leading provider of infrastructure solutions for Storage Area Networks (SANs), today announced that AUDI AG, the German carmaker, is extending its existing Brocade SAN infrastructure with the addition of four Brocade SilkWorm Fibre-Channel Directors. Audi is adding the directors to its current SAN implementation, pulling its existing Brocade SilkWorm 2800 and 3800 16-port switches into two data centers at its manufacturing plant in Ingolstadt.

The new SAN infrastructure is a classic core-to-edge dual-fabric design with SilkWorm 12000 Directors in the centre, connected to a variety of 1 and 2 Gbit/sec SilkWorm 2800 and 3800 16-port Fibre Channel switches that fan out to a variety of Windows NT and UNIX servers.

"We really wanted to remain with one vendor for our SAN infrastructure," said Tobias Gehl, team coordinator of the SAN division at Audi. "In this respect, Brocade was an easy choice -- and because the quality had been convincing prior to this, the decision was a quick one to make."

Audi has now combined the SilkWorm 2800 and 3800 switches with storage solutions from EMC and IBM in both its data centres. At the heart of each fabric lies a new SilkWorm 12000 Director. The consolidated system supports all of Audi's critical business applications, ranging from CAD systems and word-processing programs to ERP and other high-level business applications, on which approximately 31,000 employees rely.

Following the integration, Audi has recorded higher levels of application availability, which is in part due to enhanced administration features.

"It's a great advantage to be able to implement any necessary changes or firmware upgrades while the solution is in operation," continued Gehl. "It has enabled us to reduce system downtime significantly."

"In consolidating the SAN infrastructure, Audi can now accommodate growth even more flexibly," says Uli Plechschmidt, Director Central Region, Brocade. "Audi is typical of many of our customers in that it has opted to expand its Brocade infrastructure after a positive experience."

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.

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