Massive IT Consolidation from McDATA an Enlightening Experience for Energy Company

Business Wire, June 30, 2004

BROOMFIELD, Colo. -- PPL Simplifies SANs, Protects Data and Reduces TCO To Internal Customers by 15 Percent

McDATA Corporation (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT), the expert provider of multi-capable storage networking solutions, today announced the implementation of a McDATA-based IT consolidation and data protection solution at PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL), a company that controls about 12,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets and delivers electricity to nearly 5 million customers in Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom and Latin America. The installation of the McDATA solution supports storage growth and infrastructure cost reduction requirements while enabling a 75 percent storage consolidation, cutting 24 legacy switches down to six McDATA switches, and tiered storage service objectives to be met. Other benefits included the consolidation of disk arrays by 60 percent, the reduction of administrative firmware upgrade labor hours by 93 percent (from 20 to 1.5 labor hours) and improved data backup and replication capabilities.

"Our previous SAN infrastructure based on small departmental switches had hit the wall. Simply, we couldn't effectively scale anymore and needed to take a different approach to our current and future storage network deployment," said Chris Carter, director of enterprise technology services for PPL. "We partnered with McDATA because we felt they were able to provide a more robust solution overall. We were also able to consolidate the previous 24 small switches down to six McDATA switches, reducing management hours and maintenance costs significantly. Now we have a simplified solution that can scale the way we need it to for many years to come without changing our design."

PPL's requirement for operational and economic efficiencies for their network called for reduced maintenance costs and administration hours, while managing and retaining their data over its lifetime in a cost-effective process. Working with EMC and McDATA, PPL standardized on McDATA Intrepid(R) Directors to complete storage network consolidation projects and Sphereon(TM) Fabric Switches for disaster recovery and data protection initiatives. This new flexible architecture enabled a reduction in PPL's data backup and management labor hours, which drastically cut costs and met the company's tiered storage services strategy requirements; McDATA's non-disruptive switch firmware upgrade feature, HotCAT(TM), was cited as a great benefit. PPL also uses EMC's Data Manager for cross data center SAN backup.

"With our previous networking solution, we had to monitor the failover process as we brought down each of the 24 switches to ensure everything was progressing as it should," said Carter. "Now, we don't. Besides, there are plenty of other things our team would rather be doing on a Friday evening."

The McDATA networking solution was a key enabler in the implementation of the company's tiered storage services initiatives. Aimed at lowering storage costs and improving operational efficiencies, data is segregated into classes with similar requirements, such as performance, availability and containment costs, enabling internal customers to benefit from cost savings.

"McDATA understands that large utility and service companies such as PPL require reliable, custom-tailored and easy-to-manage solutions that help them meet customer service levels and other strategic business initiatives," said Jeff Vogel, senior vice president worldwide marketing, McDATA. "By standardizing on a proven McDATA infrastructure, PPL was able to meet their demanding consolidation, disaster recovery and cost-reduction objectives. The new, easily managed fabric will meet internal requirements regarding availability, budget control and storage maintenance."

About McDATA (www.mcdata.com)

McDATA (Nasdaq: MCDTA)(Nasdaq: MCDT) is the expert provider of Multi-Capable Storage Networking Solutions(TM) -- hardware, software and services -- that enable partners and customers around the world to reduce the total cost of storage management today, and be ready to adapt to the real-time information demands of tomorrow. Entrenched in over 8,000 data centers worldwide, McDATA solutions are at the heart of more than 80 percent of Fortune 100 storage network data centers, powering the latest e-business applications, customer databases, financial traffic and other mission-critical data. Customers leverage McDATA's multi-capable solutions to realize immediate cost savings, reduce their investment risk, ensure the continuity of their operations and adapt to changing business requirements.

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