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IBM TO RESELL CNT UltraNet MULTI-SERVICE DIRECTOR

CNT announced that IBM will resell its new UltraNet Multi-service Director (UMD), a new generation storage networking infrastructure platform with superior scalability in ports, protocols and speeds. The reseller agreement further strengthens IBM's ability to help customers implement enterprise-wide storage environments that support the need for flexible, on demand business. The CNT solution is designed to help customers lower their total cost of ownership through storage simplification.

The UltraNet Multi-service Director's design complements IBM's TotalStorage portfolio by offering additional value for IBM customers. When a customer has an open systems or mainframe environment and needs a flexible storage networking platform that can scale and evolve as their company grows and as needs change, the UMD can help. For customers using IBM TotalStorage SAN Volume Controller to manage their heterogeneous storage environment, the UMD offers remote replication connectivity.

From the robust FICON support for IBM zSeries environments, to integrated support for IBM's remote storage and business continuity solutions with the IBM TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server (ESS), FAStT, Enterprise Tape System 3590, 3592, and LTO tape products, this new UMD platform offers industry leadership in supporting IBM TotalStorage solutions.

"IBM has been a successful reseller of CNT's products over the years, and we are pleased that they are the first channel for our latest addition to the CNT product family, the UltraNet Multi-service Director. The UMD's unique UltraScale architecture provides customers with a platform built for continuous change and growth while improving SAN design and management," said Ed Walsh, senior vice president of worldwide sales, marketing and alliances at CNT. "This natural evolution in CNT's product line helps to ensure a high degree of infrastructure investment protection for IBM customers."

The UltraNet Multi-service Director provides an unprecedented 5 Tbps of system throughput for up to 512 non-blocking ports at 4 Gb per second data rates. It provides high levels of scalability, flexibility, and serviceability. In addition, its non-blocking, low latency design is intended to provide "plug-n-go" ease for customers to provide consistent performance across every port, regardless of application or load. This allows for attractive performance at full capacity or when deploying storage services.

"By using the new CNT director with IBM TotalStorage, customers have expanded options for reducing their storage networking infrastructure costs and simplifying their operations," said Cindy Grossman, director disk marketing for IBM Storage Systems. "CNT's next generation director family features affordable entry pricing which will be attractive to larger midrange customers who want to implement a buy-and-grow strategy."

"Enterprise IT is challenged to both reduce costs and do more with less, while trying to meet the growing demands of business. CNT's new UltraNet Multi-service Director delivers on both fronts. It enables SAN and infrastructure consolidation to reduce costs and gain efficiencies, while building a flexible, enterprise-wide storage network architecture that can change and evolve as the business needs change over time, providing a nice upgrade path with investment protection," said Brad O'Neill, senior analyst and consultant with The Taneja Group.