PALM DESERT, Calif. April 9, 2001 Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today announced that it has qualified more than 60 national and regional value add resellers (VARs) and systems integrators (SIs) to resell the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router. To receive Cisco qualification, VARs and SIs must demonstrate that they can deliver integrated multi-vendor storage solutions, including the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router, the first networking platform based on the emerging iSCSI standard.

"A close alliance with the reseller and systems integrator communities is a key factor in Cisco successfully entering the storage market," said Mark Cree, general manager of the Storage Router Business Unit at Cisco. "Cisco will rely on their expertise in this industry to deliver the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router and future Cisco Storage Networking solutions to the substantial customer base they represent."

The Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router allows universal access to pools of Fibre Channel storage over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. With the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router, customers can directly access storage anywhere on an IP network just as easily as they can access storage locally. For the Cisco storage VARs and SIs, the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router provides a way for their customers to enhance their existing storage investments with the ubiquity, ease of management, and security features IP networking offers. To ensure interoperability in their customers' environments, many VARs and SIs have tested the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router in their networks.

IBM Global Services, who is both a VAR and SI for the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router, conducted performance and interoperability testing at the IBM SAN Interoperability Lab in Gaithersburg, MD. "IBM tested the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router for connectivity to various storage platforms and servers from multiple vendors," said Roger Schwanhausser, director of Storage and SAN Services, IBM Global Services. "As the leader in networking and storage services, we're committed to helping customers design, build, test and manage powerful storage solutions using the latest SAN and networking technologies, including the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router."

Mike Flannery, president of SanOne, a storage reseller based in Phoenix, AZ, said: "The Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router brings tremendous value to SanOne's storage convergence strategy. We are very pleased with its adaptability within our DAMstor product line. Using iSCSI will allow us to extend SANone's solutions across the entire network infrastructure."

Forsythe Solutions, a national technology solutions provider headquartered in suburban Chicago, has added the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router to its array of storage and networking offerings. Forsythe's president, Eva Losacco, said: "Cisco's entrance into the storage market is exciting news. We have been dedicating significant energy to the area of SAN solutions for the past year, because of the significant benefits the new architecture brings to customers. The clear benefit of the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Routerwill be in providing storage access across customers' entire wide area networks, and allowing distributed servers access to storage devices and back-up resources. We are very pleased to be able to offer it as part of our SAN solutions."

TidalWire, a supplier of storage interconnect products and services based in Westborough, MA, has added the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router to its product line. TidalWire's CEO, Jeff Brandes, said: "The Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router will enable our customers to preserve their investment in Fibre Channel SANs while adding the robustness and benefits of wide-area IP networking. Cisco's leadership position and vision for IP within the storage infrastructure gives our storage customers a new level of performance, accessibility and management."

Richard Search, senior vice president of Marketing and Product Development at Dot Hill, a leading provider of carrier-class SAN storage and networking solutions, added: "Adding Ethernet access to our SANnet solutions provides staggering productivity gains and an immediate return on investment. The Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router allows us to use IP networking to deliver a new set of storage networking services to enterprises, service providers, and small to medium businesses using both Ethernet and Fibre Channel-based gigabit-speed storage networks."

Pricing and Availability

The Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router is expected to be available later this month and is listed at $27,000.