NEC Corporation of America, a premier provider of IT, network and telephony solutions, today announced their S-Series Storage Systems have been verified by Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. as compatible with Brocade-based Storage Area Networking (SAN) infrastructure, according to the testing requirements of the Brocade Fabric Aware Program. This program is a comprehensive testing and configuration initiative designed to foster SAN interoperability in multi-vendor Brocade-based SAN environments. Testing was conducted at the Brocade Fabric Aware labs, which are state-of-the-art facilities supporting end-to-end interoperability and performance testing of SAN products in multi-vendor and large fabric SAN environments. The Brocade Fabric Aware Program boasts an impressive collection of members since its launch in 2000. "NEC has 42 years of experience in serving our storage customers, and have a deep understanding of the vast importance of compatibility with Brocade switches to accelerate SAN implementations," said Matthew Wolken, vice president, Fault Tolerant Server and Data Storage of NEC Corporation of America. "We are working to ensure interoperability of NEC's complete storage product line, as part of our continuous effort to provide the marketplace with quality storage solutions and value-added services." Available in North America, the NEC S-Series of storage systems include the S1500, S2500 and the S2900 which offer high performance, full data availability as well as a comprehensive suite of business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities. "We are pleased that NEC has successfully completed the Fabric Aware testing with Brocade fabric switches in multi-vendor SAN environments," said Dan Crain, chief technology officer for Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. "Storage area networks are being deployed worldwide at a rapid rate as a scalable, high-performance networking foundation for storage environments. The Fabric Aware program is an example of our continued commitment to our SAN customers."