McData announced separate agreements to acquire Nishan Systems and Sanera Systems, both start-ups targeting storage area networks (SANs). McDATA said that as a result of these acquisitions its expanded portfolio would allow its customers to seamlessly build and grow their storage services infrastructure in several dimensions simultaneously.
Nishan Systems, which is based in San Jose, California, offers a line of IP storage switching products that enable enterprises to leverage their Fibre Channel storage network infrastructure and their IP networks to consolidate storage infrastructures across the campus and enterprise. Nishan switches are qualified with all major storage platforms and replication applications, including those of EMC, HDS, HP, IBM, XIOtech, Sun, StorageTek and LSI Logic. McDATA has agreed to acquire all outstanding shares of Nishan Systems for $83 million in cash and will also assume approximately $2 million in debt.
Sanera Systems, which is based in Sunnyvale, California, offers terabit, protocol transparent SAN switches. Sanera's DS10000 datacenter-class director, introduced in April 2003, scales to as many as 256 non-blocking 2 Gbps ports or up to 64 10 Gbps ports per chassis. The platform can be used for SAN consolidation, large fabric deployment and in-network storage services integration. McDATA has agreed to acquire all outstanding shares of Sanera Systems for approximately $102 million in cash, net of debt and cash on hand.
Both acquisitions are expected to close within one to two months, pending regulatory approvals.
Separately, McDATA announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Aarohi Communications to provide technology for McDATA's intelligent switch platforms.
http://www.mcdata.com
http://www.nishansystems.com/
- Sanera Systems is headed by Alex Mendez, who is a founding partner of Storm Ventures, and was previously VP & General Manager of Cisco's Multiservice Access Business Unit.
- In July 2003, Sanera Systems received $35 million in third round financing to support the development of its terabit, protocol transparent SAN switch.
- Nishan Systems was founded in October 1998 and is led by Aamer Latif, who previously was President and CEO of Amati Communications, an early developer of ADSL. In October 2000, the company announced the closing of $50 million in third round funding.
