SAN JOSE, Calif., February 5, 2002 - Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today announced that StorageNetworks, Inc., the world's leading provider of data storage management software and services, has qualified the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router for its offerings. This qualification is significant because it will allow StorageNetworks and its customers to manage storage infrastructures using the familiarity and ubiquity of TCP/IP networking.

The Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router is the award-winning networking device built on the iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface) protocol, which enables block-level storage traffic to operate over TCP/IP networks.

"iSCSI technology is an important and growing part of the storage infrastructure that our enterprise customers and partners need to leverage in order to be competitive," said John C. Clavin, Executive Vice President of Marketing at StorageNetworks. "At the same time, the wide familiarity with IP networking and the abundance of IP equipment availability make these iSCSI-based storage services cost-effective and easy to deploy and manage when used with our software and services."

The Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router integration is the latest business project between the two companies. As an Cisco AVVID Partner in the Storage Networking Track, StorageNetworks will continue to work with Cisco on interoperability testing and co-marketing programs that enable leading product and services firms to deploy innovative e-business solutions.

"The integration of the Cisco SN 5420 into StorageNetworks' product and service offerings demonstrates that iSCSI is a reliable and proven technology for storage networking," said Mark Cree, general manager of the Storage Router Business Unit at Cisco. "Offerings like this extend the reach and benefits of IP-based storage networking to new customer segments and expand the revenue potential for both companies."