News Release

Network Appliance and Cisco Redefine Fibre Channel SAN Scalability

Cost-Effective, Easy-to-Deploy Fibre Channel Director Ideal for NetApp® Large-Scale FC SAN Customers
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Jun 20, 2006

SUNNYVALE, Calif., June 20, 2006 - Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP), a leader in advanced networked storage solutions, today announced worldwide availability of the Cisco® MDS 9513 Multilayer Director, 4Gb and 10Gb Fibre Channel switching modules for joint NetApp and Cisco storage area networking (SAN) solutions, strengthening the overall NetApp FC SAN portfolio. The Cisco MDS 9513 combined with the NetApp FAS6000 series provides massive data center scalability (up to 500TB) making the solution ideal for customers managing large scale data consolidation projects with the largest enterprise applications.

The new MDS 9513 Director scales to 528 4Gb Fibre Channel ports, the highest-density SAN director in the industry to date, allowing for greater data center scalability and consolidation to meet enterprises' growing business needs. Plus, the Cisco MDS 9513 Director and 4Gb and 10Gb switching modules are compatible with new and existing Cisco MDS 9000 series products and NetApp storage systems, allowing customers to incorporate higher port speeds and scale their existing MDS 9506 and MDS 9509 Directors up to 192-and 336-ports per chassis respectively. The MDS 9000 series delivers the investment protection needed for organizations looking to take advantage of the latest technology without having to build out a new SAN infrastructure.

"NetApp is the fastest growing FC SAN vendor in the market today and we continue to raise the bar by expanding our portfolio of joint SAN solutions for the data center," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Products and Partners at Network Appliance. "The Cisco MDS 9513 Director is a great complement to our new FAS6000, as well as our FAS3000 series of products, giving customers a robust solution to meet their most demanding scalability and performance needs."

"Cisco continues to work with NetApp to provide solutions that help customers consolidate their SANs," said Ed Chapman, vice president, product management, Data Center and Switching Business Unit at Cisco. "The Cisco MDS 9513 Director delivers industry-leading port density, availability, and the advanced feature set to help the most demanding enterprises consolidate and scale for the future, providing an excellent complement to the massive scalability and modularity of the NetApp FAS6000."

NetApp also provides SAN design and implementation services that assist customers in developing a documented detailed design, to configure and execute on a granular implementation plan, when integrating NetApp FC SAN or IP SAN storage systems into the existing IT environment. The service enables smooth and efficient deployment, fully leverages the innovation embedded in product functionality, increases overall utilization, and provides near-zero downtime when integration takes place. For more information on NetApp services, visit www.netapp.com/support.

About Network Appliance

Network Appliance is a world leader in unified storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has delivered technology, product, and partner firsts that simplify data management. Information about Network ApplianceTM solutions and services is available at www.netapp.com.

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