Network Appliance Draws Praise from Lucasfilm Animation; NetApp(R) Disk Systems Help Power...

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP), the leader in advanced networked storage solutions, today announced that Lucasfilm Animation is using NetApp FAS3000 series systems to power sophisticated and data-intensive computer animation applications at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County,

California, and its new studio facility in Singapore. Lucasfilm Animation and its subsidiary Lucasfilm Animation Singapore are part of Lucasfilm Ltd., one of the world's leading movie and entertainment companies. NetApp equipment is also used in another Lucasfilm enterprise -- Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) -- winner of 14 Academy Awards(R) for Best Visual Effects and 17 Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards -- and the special effects house for many of this year's summer blockbusters, including Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds.

"Creating brand-new CG imagery today requires not only creativity and artistic vision, but also a high-performance, high-reliability technical infrastructure," said Cliff Plumer, Chief Technology Officer at Lucasfilm Ltd. "NetApp brought us industry-leading technology, performance, scalability and, most importantly ease of use."

The NetApp deployment at Lucasfilm Animation at both Skywalker Ranch and Singapore is based on NetApp FAS3050 systems running Data ONTAP(TM) 7G. With powerful FlexVol(TM) capabilities, Data ONTAP 7G is the ideal complement to intense compute grid environments, maximizing all storage resources as one large pool without requiring massive increases in storage capacity.

About Network Appliance

Network Appliance is a world leader in unified storage solutions for today's data-intensive enterprise. Since its inception in 1992, Network Appliance has delivered technology, product, and partner firsts that simplify data management. Information about Network Appliance(TM) solutions and services is available at www.netapp.com.

For more information about the opening of Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, please contact Marlene Saritzky at marlene.Saritzky@lucasfilm.com, or call 415-623-1962.

NetApp is a registered trademark and Network Appliance, Data ONTAP, and FlexVol are trademarks of Network Appliance, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such.