New McDATA(R) Mainframe Service Offerings Simplify Infrastructure Deployment and Management

  
    
  
  
    
      McDATA® Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: 
      MCDT), a leading provider of data access solutions, announced today four 
      new professional services offerings that help customers justify, plan, 
      deploy and optimize their mainframe environment, simplifying life for 
      mainframe administrators. The new service offerings leverage McDATA’s 
      25 years of mainframe experience and best-practices expertise and make 
      McDATA the only storage networking vendor to offer a comprehensive suite 
      of professional services specifically designed for the mainframe 
      environment.
    
    
      “Only McDATA can provide customers with a 
      complete mainframe solution offering, including a complete line of FICON 
      switching products, ESCON and FICON extension products, integrated 
      management software, bandwidth services as well as professional and 
      support services,” said Todd Oseth, chief 
      operating officer, McDATA. “This new suite of 
      consulting, implementation and education services augments McDATA’s 
      broad mainframe solution portfolio and allows customers to leverage our 
      more than two decades of mainframe experience.”
    
    
      Faced with the difficult challenge of meeting strict data retention and 
      protection demands while continuing to drive down operational costs, IT 
      organizations are looking at FICON migrations and expansions to provide 
      cost-effective performance. However, current industry standard 
      management tools do not always provide the level of detailed metrics 
      required to ensure an optimized storage environment, forcing customers 
      to make “best guess” 
      decisions. In addition, mainframe administrators don’t 
      always have the information they need to determine when or how to add 
      capacity or upgrade infrastructure to achieve the desired result. McDATA’s 
      new tool-based services are specifically designed to meet the needs of 
      mainframe customers by providing a more granular operational window into 
      the environment, helping companies analyze and plan new FICON 
      deployments more effectively.
    
    
      McDATA’s new professional services offerings 
      include:
    
    
      
        Mainframe Infrastructure ROI Analysis: allows customers to 
        understand the benefits and financial return of a FICON technology 
        migration, upgrade or expansion before committing to the investment
      
      
        Mainframe Storage I/O Healthcheck: gives customers detailed 
        metrics about how their mainframe storage infrastructure is performing 
        and identifies opportunities to optimize performance
      
      
        Mainframe Infrastructure ESCON to FICON Migration Implementation 
        Services: leverages the experience of McDATA mainframe experts to 
        ensure a best-practice deployment and smooth transition to FICON
      
      
        Advanced Mainframe Infrastructure Seminar: ensures that 
        operational staff understand the latest advancements and best 
        practices in FICON technology
      
    
    
      McDATA’s new mainframe professional services 
      offerings are available now throughout North America. Worldwide 
      offerings will be available during the first half of 2007.
    
    
      About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)
    
    
      McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT) is the leading provider of storage 
      networking solutions, helping customers build, globally connect, 
      optimize and centrally manage data infrastructures across SAN, MAN and 
      WAN environments. With nearly 25 years experience developing SAN 
      products, services and solutions, McDATA is the trusted partner in the 
      world's largest data centers, connecting more than two-thirds of all 
      networked data.
    
    
      Forward-Looking Statements
    
    
      This press release contains statements about expected future events that 
      are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Readers are 
      urged to consider statements that include the terms "believes", 
      "belief", "expects", "plans", "objectives", "estimates", "anticipates", 
      "intends", "targets", or the like to be uncertain and forward-looking. 
      Factors that could cause actual results to differ and vary materially 
      from expectations include, but are not limited to, McDATA’s 
      relationships with EMC, IBM and Hitachi Data Systems and the level of 
      their orders, aggressive price competition by numerous other SAN and IP 
      switch suppliers, OEM qualification of our new products - such as the 
      Intrepid 10000 Director, integration of CNT’s 
      sales and marketing functions, manufacturing constraints, constraints in 
      obtaining third party product for resale and other risk factors that are 
      disclosed in McDATA’s filings with the 
      Securities and Exchange Commission. These cautionary statements by 
      McDATA should not be construed as exhaustive or as any admission 
      regarding the adequacy of disclosures made by McDATA. All cautionary 
      statements should be read as being applicable to all forward-looking 
      statements wherever they appear. McDATA does not undertake any 
      obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, 
      whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
    
  
McDATA(R) Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT), a leading
provider of data access solutions, announced today four new
professional services offerings that help customers justify, plan,
deploy and optimize their mainframe environment, simplifying life for
mainframe administrators. The new service offerings leverage McDATA's
25 years of mainframe experience and best-practices expertise and make
McDATA the only storage networking vendor to offer a comprehensive
suite of professional services specifically designed for the mainframe
environment.

   "Only McDATA can provide customers with a complete mainframe
solution offering, including a complete line of FICON switching
products, ESCON and FICON extension products, integrated management
software, bandwidth services as well as professional and support
services," said Todd Oseth, chief operating officer, McDATA. "This new
suite of consulting, implementation and education services augments
McDATA's broad mainframe solution portfolio and allows customers to
leverage our more than two decades of mainframe experience."

   Faced with the difficult challenge of meeting strict data
retention and protection demands while continuing to drive down
operational costs, IT organizations are looking at FICON migrations
and expansions to provide cost-effective performance. However, current
industry standard management tools do not always provide the level of
detailed metrics required to ensure an optimized storage environment,
forcing customers to make "best guess" decisions. In addition,
mainframe administrators don't always have the information they need
to determine when or how to add capacity or upgrade infrastructure to
achieve the desired result. McDATA's new tool-based services are
specifically designed to meet the needs of mainframe customers by
providing a more granular operational window into the environment,
helping companies analyze and plan new FICON deployments more
effectively.

   McDATA's new professional services offerings include:

   --  Mainframe Infrastructure ROI Analysis: allows customers to
        understand the benefits and financial return of a FICON
        technology migration, upgrade or expansion before committing
        to the investment

   --  Mainframe Storage I/O Healthcheck: gives customers detailed
        metrics about how their mainframe storage infrastructure is
        performing and identifies opportunities to optimize
        performance

   --  Mainframe Infrastructure ESCON to FICON Migration
        Implementation Services: leverages the experience of McDATA
        mainframe experts to ensure a best-practice deployment and
        smooth transition to FICON

   --  Advanced Mainframe Infrastructure Seminar: ensures that
        operational staff understand the latest advancements and best
        practices in FICON technology

   McDATA's new mainframe professional services offerings are
available now throughout North America. Worldwide offerings will be
available during the first half of 2007.

   About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)

   McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT) is the leading provider of
storage networking solutions, helping customers build, globally
connect, optimize and centrally manage data infrastructures across
SAN, MAN and WAN environments. With nearly 25 years experience
developing SAN products, services and solutions, McDATA is the trusted
partner in the world's largest data centers, connecting more than
two-thirds of all networked data.

   Forward-Looking Statements

   This press release contains statements about expected future
events that are forward-looking and subject to risks and
uncertainties. Readers are urged to consider statements that include
the terms "believes", "belief", "expects", "plans", "objectives",
"estimates", "anticipates", "intends", "targets", or the like to be
uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that could cause actual results
to differ and vary materially from expectations include, but are not
limited to, McDATA's relationships with EMC, IBM and Hitachi Data
Systems and the level of their orders, aggressive price competition by
numerous other SAN and IP switch suppliers, OEM qualification of our
new products - such as the Intrepid 10000 Director, integration of
CNT's sales and marketing functions, manufacturing constraints,
constraints in obtaining third party product for resale and other risk
factors that are disclosed in McDATA's filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. These cautionary statements by McDATA should not
be construed as exhaustive or as any admission regarding the adequacy
of disclosures made by McDATA. All cautionary statements should be
read as being applicable to all forward-looking statements wherever
they appear. McDATA does not undertake any obligation to publicly
update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result
of new information, future events or otherwise.