News release

HP and Brocade Deliver Enhanced Capabilities for Enterprise Storage Area Networks

HP VersaStor Virtualization and New Brocade Fabric Application Platform Extends SAN Benefits, Adds New Levels of Scalability and Performance

HP (NYSE:HPQ) and Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (Brocade®) (Nasdaq:BRCD), a world-leading provider of infrastructure solutions for storage area networks (SANs), today announced an industry-first joint development agreement to deploy HP VersaStor virtualization technology within the new Brocade SilkWorm® Fabric Application Platform enabling new levels of scalability and performance in heterogeneous storage environments.

Today's announcement was delivered at the HP ENSA@Work event in Amsterdam, with more than 3,600 customers and partners in attendance. An enterprise event with a focus on storage, this year's ENSA@Work unites the entire HP enterprise technology spectrum -- storage, servers, services, software, partners and solutions -- under the theme of building an adaptive IT infrastructure that puts customers in control.

This agreement delivers on HP's ENSAextended strategy for the future of networked enterprise storage. ENSAextended enables customers to manage their storage environments based on business rules resulting in adaptive storage infrastructures that are controllable, resilient and extensible.

"ENSAextended enables customers to adapt and optimize storage and service levels through advanced technologies such as virtualization, adding greater simplicity and utilization of storage resources," said Howard Elias, senior vice president and general manager, HP Network Storage Solutions. "Today's announcement is a natural extension of our long-standing relationship with Brocade and our leadership position to deliver storage solutions that provide an adaptive storage infrastructure that is more controllable, resilient, and extensible."

"Our teamwork with HP delivers on the promise of fabric-based applications to help enterprises save costs and simplify storage management," said Greg Reyes, chairman and chief executive officer, Brocade. "We are excited to partner with HP, whose visionary framework for network-based virtualization is a first in the industry. Our approach assures total investment protection for the customer -- today's SAN customers will be able to seamlessly integrate HP OpenView CASA into their existing SAN fabrics and gain the benefits of fabric-based applications."

The two industry leaders in heterogeneous SAN management are combining the innovation of HP VersaStor technology and recently realized advances in intelligent SAN platforms from Brocade to enable storage management capabilities to run on intelligent switches.

The combined solution extends the existing functionality of HP OpenView continuous access storage appliance (CASA) by allowing network traffic to be intelligently directed as required by the customers' storage needs. In addition, it seamlessly integrates with existing HP and Brocade SAN fabrics and HP OpenView storage area management (SAM) software, protecting existing investments and enabling existing IT infrastructure to deliver next-generation capabilities.

"Simplifying storage management, as storage environments dramatically scale in size and become increasingly heterogeneous, is a leading requirement for customers," said John Webster, senior analyst and founder, Data Mobility Group. "With continued advances in open systems storage virtualization and intelligent SAN platforms for storage management application development, it is now possible to address this requirement with solutions that utilize intelligence embedded in the storage fabric.

"The increased partnership level announced between HP and Brocade, the first of its kind to embrace the Rhapsody platform for storage virtualization and management, represents a major step forward in the evolution of the industry toward delivering solutions that address this key customer requirement."

The intelligent switch solution is expected to ship with HP VersaStor technology in the second half of 2003. Brocade will be delivering the SilkWorm Fabric Application Platform as a result of its intended acquisition of Rhapsody Networks. Brocade participation in this agreement is subject to the closure of Brocade's acquisition of Rhapsody, which is expected to occur shortly.

About Brocade

Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) 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 the implementation of storage area networks, reduce the total cost of ownership of data storage environments, and improve network and application efficiency. For more information, visit the Brocade website at http://www.brocade.com or contact the company at info@brocade.com.

About HP

HP is a leading global provider of products, technologies, solutions and services to consumers and businesses. The company's offerings span IT infrastructure, personal computing and access devices, global services and imaging and printing. HP completed its merger transaction involving Compaq Computer Corporation on May 3, 2002. More information about HP is available at http://www.hp.com.

Brocade, the B weave logo and SilkWorm are registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States or in other countries.