Brocade and Emulex Collaborate on Gen 6 Fibre Channel Solutions

COSTA MESA, Calif. & SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Emulex Corporation ELX, a leader in network connectivity, monitoring and management, and Brocade, Inc. BRCD, the industry leader in networking fabrics, today announced a commitment to jointly develop and align the two companies' roadmaps around a new generation of advanced Gen 6 (32Gb) Fibre Channel networking solutions, enabling increased network performance, higher scalability and improved reliability for the highly virtualized data center.

Emulex and Brocade have a long history of driving industry innovation, including recently announced support for Brocade ClearLink diagnostics, which ensures the reliability and management of storage network configurations, and Emulex Gen 5 Flash Services, including ExpressLane™, which provides Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities for flash/solid state disk (SSD)-based storage and Emulex CrossLink™ which provides in-band message passing between server nodes, delivering optimized performance using lossless, standards-based FC protocols.

Emulex and Brocade are jointly developing technology to deliver:

• Industry Leading Network Performance with Gen 6 (32Gb) FC: Emulex and Brocade will partner to develop end-to-end 32GFC-based solutions that will improve performance and scalability to support the demands of highly virtualized data centers and flash/SSD-based applications.
• Extending Fibre Channel's Industry Leading Reliability: Emulex and Brocade are delivering ClearLink, an advanced end-to-end diagnostic solution, that performs in-band tests on both Brocade Gen 5 FC switches and Emulex Gen 5 FC HBAs, which can detect problems with the physical cabling and optics that could result in increased error rates and intermittent problems.
• Enabling Flash and SSD Solutions: Emulex and Brocade will partner to create solutions that highlight Emulex's innovative ExpressLane and CrossLink technology which is designed to enhance the QoS, optimize I/O performance and increase return on investment (ROI) in IT environments using fabric-based flash arrays and server-based cache.

“Emulex and Brocade have been on the leading edge of innovation in Fibre Channel for virtualization, flash/SSD and cloud applications,” said Shaun Walsh, senior vice president of marketing and corporate development, Emulex. “We are committed to the long term future of Fibre Channel, and are aggressively pursuing our Gen 6 FC roadmap. By working with Brocade, we will continue to be leaders in this strategic market, just as we have been in the Gen 5 FC market transition.”

“Brocade and Emulex are continuing to collaborate on innovative products to meet the needs of our mutual customers,” said Jack Rondoni, vice president of product management at Brocade. “Customers clearly value the work we have done to integrate ClearLink with Emulex LightPulse Gen 5 FC HBAs and are looking to Emulex and Brocade for continued innovation, and this roadmap alignment ensures that we will meet their needs.”

Emulex also announced today that it has certified its recently announced OneConnect® OCe14000 family of 10Gb and 40Gb Ethernet Network Adapters and Converged Network Adapters with Brocade's flagship VDX Ethernet Fabric switches for the modern data center.

Resources:

• Read our Emulex Labs blog on ExpressLane and CrossLink features here.
• Learn more about Emulex Gen 5 FC technology here.
• Learn more about Brocade Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology here.
• Follow Emulex on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/emulex
• Follow Brocade on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BRCDcomm

Tweet this: NEWS: @BRCDcomm and @Emulex Collaborate on Gen 6 #FibreChannel Solutions: http://ow.ly/t3h4u

To learn more about Emulex, please visit: http://www.emulex.com

About Emulex

Emulex, a leader in network connectivity, monitoring and management, provides hardware and software solutions for global networks that support enterprise, cloud, government and telecommunications. Emulex's products enable unrivalled end-to-end application visibility, optimisation and acceleration. The Company's I/O connectivity offerings, including its line of ultra high-performance Ethernet and Fibre Channel-based connectivity products, have been designed into server and storage solutions from leading OEMs, including Cisco, Dell, EMC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, Huawei, IBM, NetApp and Oracle, and can be found in the data centres of nearly all of the Fortune 1000. Emulex's monitoring and management solutions, including its portfolio of network visibility and recording products, provide organisations with complete network performance management at speeds up to 100Gb Ethernet. Emulex is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., and has offices and research facilities in North America, Asia and Europe. For more information about Emulex ELX please visit http://www.Emulex.com.

About Brocade

Brocade BRCD networking solutions help the world's leading organizations transition smoothly to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. (www.brocade.com)

Emulex “Safe Harbor” Statement

“Safe Harbor” Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. We expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or changes to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect any future events or circumstances. We wish to caution readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. These factors include the possibility that all or a substantial portion of the cost savings targeted by us will not be realized at all or on a timely basis and that the financing and share repurchases implemented by us may not be completed in whole or in part or within the expected timeframe even though we expect to incur charges relating to the cost savings initiative. The assumptions on which the cost savings, share repurchase and capital return goals and expectations are based necessarily involve judgments with respect to, among other things, economic, competitive and financial market conditions and the impact of the cost savings initiative on our customers, all of which are difficult or impossible to predict and many of which are beyond the Company's control. Further factors include whether changes to the membership of our board of directors will have the desired effect in helping us achieve and implement our business and strategic goals. These factors also include the possibility that we may not realize the anticipated benefits from the acquisition of Endace Limited (Endace) on a timely basis or at all, and may be unable to integrate the technology, operations and personnel of Endace into our existing operations in a timely and efficient manner. In addition, intellectual property claims, with or without merit, that could result in costly litigation, cause product shipment delays, require us to indemnify customers, or require us to enter into royalty or licensing agreements, which may or may not be available. Furthermore, we have in the past obtained, and may be required in the future to obtain, licenses of technology owned by other parties. We cannot be certain that the necessary licenses will be available or that they can be obtained on commercially reasonable terms. If we were to fail to obtain such royalty or licensing agreements in a timely manner and on reasonable terms, our business, results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected. Ongoing lawsuits, such as the action brought by Broadcom Corporation (Broadcom), present inherent risks, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, or results of operations. Such potential risks include continuing expenses of litigation, loss of patent rights, monetary damages, injunctions against the sale of products incorporating the technology in question, counterclaims, attorneys' fees, incremental costs associated with product or component redesigns, liabilities to customers under reimbursement agreements or contractual indemnification provisions, and diversion of management's attention from other business matters. With respect to the continuing Broadcom litigation, such potential risks also include the adequacy of any sunset period to make design changes, the ability to implement any design changes, the availability of customer resources to complete any re-qualification or re-testing that may be needed, the ability to maintain favorable working relationships with Emulex suppliers of serializer/deserializer (SerDes) modules, and the ability to obtain a settlement which does not put us at a competitive disadvantage. 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Other factors affecting these forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the following: faster than anticipated declines in the storage networking market, slower than expected growth of the converged networking market or the failure of our Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) customers to successfully incorporate our products into their systems; our dependence on a limited number of customers and the effects of the loss of, decrease in or delays of orders by any such customers, or the failure of such customers to make timely payments; the emergence of new or stronger competitors as a result of consolidation movements in the market; the timing and market acceptance of our products or our OEM customers' new or enhanced products; costs associated with entry into new areas of the network, server and storage technology markets; the variability in the level of our backlog and the variable and seasonal procurement patterns of our customers; any inadequacy of our intellectual property protection and the costs of actual or potential third-party claims of infringement and any related indemnity obligations or adverse judgments; the effect of any actual or potential unsolicited offers to acquire us; proxy contests or the activities of activist investors; impairment charges, including but not limited to goodwill and intangible assets; changes in tax rates or legislation; the effects of acquisitions; the effects of terrorist activities, natural disasters, and any resulting disruption in our supply chain or customer purchasing patterns or any other resulting economic or political instability; the highly competitive nature of the markets for our products as well as pricing pressures that may result from such competitive conditions; the effects of changes in our business model to separately charge for software; the effect of rapid migration of customers towards newer, lower cost product platforms; transitions from board or box level to application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) solutions for selected applications; a shift in unit product mix from higher-end to lower-end or mezzanine card products; a faster than anticipated decrease in the average unit selling prices or an increase in the manufactured cost of our products; delays in product development; our reliance on third-party suppliers and subcontractors for components and assembly; our ability to attract and retain key technical personnel; our ability to benefit from our research and development activities; our dependence on international sales and internationally produced products; changes in accounting standards; and any resulting regulatory changes on our business. These and other factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements and are discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q, under the caption “Risk Factors.”

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