News Release

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 24, 2001--

Overland Joins Brocade Program to Promote Development of Applications and Products to Enhance SAN Interoperability, Functionality and Management

Overland Data Inc. (Nasdaq:OVRL), the market leader in mid-range tape automation solutions, announced today that it has joined the Brocade Fabric Threads Developer Program.

The program is designed to provide Storage Area Network (SAN) hardware and software developers with the tools and resources to successfully develop applications and products with Brocade SilkWorm(R) fabric switches, the Brocade Fabric Operating System (Fabric OS(TM)) and Brocade Fabric Services.

Brocade Fabric Threads Developers include leading providers of SAN hardware and software solutions. These companies leverage the intelligence in Brocade SAN infrastructure to develop products that interoperate in multi-vendor storage networks.

Overland's Neo(TM) series tape library with the industry's first internal 2 Gb/s Fibre Channel option (FCO) card is considered by many as the "best-of-breed" in the mid-range tape storage segment. The Neo series is a scalable 24-terabyte library that brings enterprise-level tape backup and disaster recovery to companies of any size.

"We are very pleased to work with Brocade in creating industry-leading SAN fabric solutions," said Chet Baffa, vice president of sales, Overland Data. "The Brocade Fabric Threads Developer Program enables Overland and Brocade to share our SAN capabilities and resources to provide customers intelligent, interoperable storage solutions that work."

"We are delighted to welcome Overland Data to the Brocade Fabric Threads Developer Program. Together with our partners, we continue to lead the way in delivering new SAN capabilities and expanding the options for Brocade customers," said Jack Cuthbert, Brocade vice president of Sales, Marketing and Support Services. "By utilizing the Brocade Fabric OS and Brocade Fabric Access(TM), our partners can leverage the intelligence in Brocade infrastructure and offer new levels of SAN interoperability and management functionality to their customers."

About the Brocade Fabric Threads Developer Program

The Brocade Fabric Threads Developer Program is designed to provide SAN hardware and software developers with the tools and resources to successfully leverage the intelligence in Brocade SAN infrastructure to create products and applications that interoperate in Brocade-based heterogeneous storage networks. In addition, ongoing access to early product releases will facilitate interoperability as new products are introduced. The Fabric Threads Developer Program complements the Brocade Fabric Access Partner Program and the Fabric Aware(TM) Program, which fosters heterogeneous, end-to-end interoperability of all storage components in an enterprise SAN. Each of these programs is designed to simplify the management of storage area networks for the customer and extend interoperability across leading products and services.

About Overland

Overland Data Inc. (Nasdaq:OVRL) is a global supplier of innovative data storage and storage automation solutions for computer networks. The company's reputation for delivering high availability products, as well as its award-winning SmartScale Storage(R) architecture which set the standard for intelligent automated storage and scalability, has established Overland as a leader in the mid-range tape automation market. Overland sells its products worldwide through leading OEMs, commercial distributors, storage integrators and value-added resellers.