McDATA Corporation, a leading provider of storage networking solutions, will showcase its Intrepid 10000 Backbone Director as the heart of a tiered storage network for the Global Enterprise Data Center at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany, March 10-16. McDATA's demonstration will be on display in its booth (Hall 1, Stand 9a1), and will show the benefits of deploying a tiered storage network for the Global Enterprise Data Center (GEDC), which enables customers to securely and easily access the information they need anytime, anywhere. The GEDC provides a consolidated, tiered, centrally managed data infrastructure that reduces costs, improves security and can scale as data volumes continue to grow. Visitors to the booth will see McDATA's Intrepid 10000 backbone director and 6000-series directors, Sphereon Fabric Switches, Eclipse 2640 and 1620 SAN Routers, and SANavigator management software centrally discovering and managing the McDATA tiered storage networking environment. Deployed at the core, McDATA's Intrepid 10000 backbone director (tier 1) is the aggregation point within a tiered network where performance and redundancy are critical. Used in conjunction with McDATA's Intrepid 6000 directors (tier 2), Eclipse SAN routers and Sphereon fabric switches (tier 3), customers can cost effectively deploy information lifecycle management and on-demand resource strategies across their global enterprise (GEDC). "McDATA's demonstration at CeBIT shows the next evolution in storage networking. The key differentiator is that only McDATA can deliver a Global Enterprise Data Center as only McDATA has the right products to fulfill tiered storage networking requirements. For most customers, consolidation, interoperability and BC/DR capabilities need to come standard. What they're looking for isn't a point-in-time solution but a viable and long-term one that will evolve with their needs in a cost-effective manner," said Wayne Morris, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for McDATA.