Brocade Communications Systems, the world`s leading provider of infrastructure for storage area networks (SANs), and Comparex Holdings Ltd announced today the addition of Comparex as a Brocade Fabric Partner in Europe.
Under the terms of the agreement between the companies, Comparex will offer the Brocade SilkWorm family of fabric switches and software to Comparex customers throughout Europe.
Comparex will also offer integration and consulting services for storage area networks, ranging from SAN needs assessment, SAN planning, and implementation strategies to supplementary services such as return on investment (ROI) analysis, lab testing, and customer training.
Brocade SilkWorm fabric switches provide the world`s leading intelligent networking foundation for storage area networks. Using Brocade fabric switches, customers can connect servers with storage devices through a SAN, creating a highly reliable and manageable environment for storage applications.
The agreement between Brocade and Comparex includes a comprehensive sales training program, technical instruction seminars on Brocade products for Comparex and its customers, common marketing programs, and continuing support for Comparex by Brocade engineers.
"Through our partnership with Brocade and the addition of the Brocade intelligent platform for networking storage to our portfolio of SAN solutions, we have taken an important step closer to our goal of becoming the leading provider of storage networking in Europe," says Karl-Heinz Knapp, general manager, Enterprise Storage, at Comparex. "Our comprehensive offering of storage services and consultancy guarantees end-users expert systems integration of heterogeneous SAN environments, thus enabling them to benefit from having one source for customer-configured, complete storage networking solutions."
"For SAN customers, the expert implementation of heterogeneous storage networking solutions has never been as important as it is today," says Jean-Marie Mathiot, vice president of Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for Brocade. "Cooperation with leading partners such as Comparex, who focus on enterprise storage systems, continues to be important to Brocade. Comparex`s own systems integration lab at the Core Competence Centre in Mannheim, 320 sales and pre-sales employees and 425 technical support specialists help ensure that our European SAN customers are equipped to cope with the ever-increasing demands of today`s enterprise storage environments."
According to research conducted by MacArthur Stroud International, SAN adoption in EMEA enterprise accounts grew by over 120% during 2000. Brocade expects to continue extending its commitment to EMEA operations to provide wider support for Brocade OEM and channel partners, increasing the options for SAN customers in EMEA.
Share
Comparex is a leading IT Systems Integrator of e-business solutions. The group has offices throughout EMEA (Europe/Middle East/Africa) and a workforce of 6 000. Its annual turnover amounts to euro 700 million, around half of it generated in Europe.
Providing IT solutions that function across
different platforms and systems, Comparex - The Availability Architects - combines top-quality products from the fields of servers, storage and middleware with global services to fulfil the very highest requirements in terms of availability, scalability, flexibility and security. Leading companies in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, SA, Slovakia, Spain and the UK have chosen Comparex as their IT partner.
Comparex is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and trades under the symbol CPXH. Further information on Comparex can be obtained at its corporate Web sites, which can be accessed at www.comparexgroup.com.
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 optimise 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 Web site at www.brocade.com or contact the company at info@brocade.com.
Brocade, Extended Fabrics, Fabric Aware, Fabric Integrator, Fabric OS, Fabric Threads, Fabric Watch, Fabric Weaver, QuickLoop, SilkWorm, SilkWorm Express, and SOLUTIONware are trademarks or registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems Inc., in the United States and/or in other countries. All other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of, and are used to identify, products or services of their respective owners.
Editorial contacts