SCIENCE

BOTHELL, WA -- Vixel Corporation (Nasdaq:VIXL), a leading provider of storage area networking solutions, today announced that it is now making its enterprise-ready multivendor Storage Area Network (SAN) management software, SAN InSite Professional, available to its base of switch and hub customers. As a follow-up to the Company's recent private label OEM agreement with Fujitsu Softek, Vixel users can now also accelerate the performance and return on investment of their storage networks by implementing SAN InSite Professional. Effective immediately, Vixel customers can upgrade their SAN management capabilities at before-market prices through a "Vixel Users Only" introductory offering. Vixel's time-limited offer to customers allows them to acquire the full, unrestricted release of SAN InSite Professional at a 50 percent discount off published list prices. SAN management software has been repeatedly positioned by leading storage industry analysts as the single most effective way for users to reduce total cost of ownership of their SANs, and as the fastest growing segment of the SAN market. "Customers installing storage area networks will quickly see the benefit from SAN management tools such as the Vixel product, that allow them to discover and monitor the total SAN environment from a single console," reports Carolyn DiCenzo, chief analyst for Gartner Dataquest. According to Gartner Dataquest, the SAN and Device Administration software market is expected to grow from $379 million in license revenue in 2000 to a $1.6 billion market in 2005. As a fully heterogeneous product that leverages Vixel's years of experience of device management, SAN InSite Professional unifies and extends users' ability to enhance and monitor the health and reliability of their SANs, and capitalizes on the recent Fibre Alliance Management Information Base (MIBs) that are now implemented by the majority of SAN device manufacturers. "SAN InSite Professional represents an unmatched value to Vixel customers who yearn for a simple yet effective way to discover, monitor and manage all of the devices that make up their SANs," says Tom Willard, Vixel's chief evangelist of SAN InSite Professional Software. "With more than twice the scalability of competing products and all the flexibility associated with its true client server open architecture, this product offers immediate benefits to the full range of SAN users--from departmental system users to managers of enterprise-wide fabric-based SANs."