Cloverleaf Communications Formed to Address the Cost and Complexity of Managing Storage Networks

Company Founded to Deliver a Non-Disruptive Policy-Based System to Efficiently Manage Data, Assuring No Down-Time

SOUTHBOROUGH, MASS. October 8, 2003 – In preparation for general availability of the company’s product later this month, Cloverleaf Communications today formally announced its strategy to deliver an enterprise class, system level solution that harnesses the value and performance of existing data center storage networking infrastructures while simplifying overall deployment and management. The company is focused on providing flexibility in technology and business purchasing decisions while increasing the productivity and efficiency of device level as well as networking resources in heterogeneous and distributed environments, allowing IT professionals to be more effective and productive in their jobs.

Named after the cloverleaf-designed road intersections built to eliminate congestion and provide an uninterrupted flow of traffic, the company’s system provides comprehensive 3-D consolidation of heterogeneous storage networking services and resources. Unlike today’s storage capacity virtualization-only appliances, the Cloverleaf system goes further to deliver policy-based management and business continuance tools in a single management view. Cloverleaf is built to enable gradual, non-disruptive deployment from non-mission critical segments/application to full mission critical data-center wise integration.

Steve Duplessie, founder and senior analyst at Enterprise Storage Group commented, “Making the storage network smarter is vital in enabling users to move forward strategically. Not only is consolidation of today’s storage islands important for this, but the ability to scale and provide quality of service capabilities are fundamental in enabling the data center to be considered a contribution center, rather than a financial and resource drain, within corporations. We’ve been following Cloverleaf’s progression for some time now and believe they have a unique offering – the Cloverleaf system extends beyond the function of consolidating just capacity to incorporate both services and bandwidth. The application of policy management and support to service agreements at the data center level makes Cloverleaf attractive from the mid-tier to the enterprise.”

Cloverleaf’s scalability, enabled by their robust system-level approach, offers substantial technology and business values for data centers.  Based on the company’s understanding of the behavior of networks, and their treating the data center as a single business service entity, Cloverleaf far exceeds other systems’ ability to scale.  The company’s philosophy incorporates installed software applications and mixed vendors, products, and technologies – while exploiting these components’ value beyond their current functions.

 "The Cloverleaf strategy embraces the complex reality of today's storage environment," said John McArthur, group vice president of Storage Research at IDC.  “If they can avoid it, users don't want to replace their installed storage and storage management software applications.  Cloverleaf’s scalability and day-one support for mixed vendor environments are significant differentiators.   With Cloverleaf, customers can keep their existing infrastructure and still gain significant value."

Company and Product Background

Cloverleaf was founded as a spin-off from ELTA Systems Ltd., a defense research and development company affiliated with Israel Aircraft Industries.  Cloverleaf’s founders Dr. Elic Yavor, chief technology officer and Joseph Klein, chief operating officer, worked together at ELTA, where they developed and deployed very high performance, secure communications and networking systems proven in military and commercial applications.

 Avi Weiss, CEO of Cloverleaf said, “Cloverleaf has gone beyond just owning the rights to the ELTA technology.  We have combined the comprehensive experience of the original core team with domain experts from other specialties and applied this to the storage networking market.  In this increasingly complex arena we understand that storage will continue to scale, while at the same time customers have been desperately seeking a method to simplify the management of operations and costs.  It is our goal to meet these valid business needs related to the management and control of data.”

Cloverleaf to date has received $10 million in financing from leading venture capitalists including Genesis Partners, BancBoston Ventures and ELTA Systems as well as private investors such as Kumar Malavalli, co-founder and strategic advisor to storage networking company Brocade Communications Systems.  Cloverleaf’s board of directors, led by executive chairperson Brenda Christensen, a storage networking, system area networking (clustering) and Fibre Channel industry-marketing pioneer, includes Eddy Shalev, founder and general partner of Genesis Partners, Mordechay Finkenberg, director business developments of ELTA, Haim Amitai, vice president, finance of ELTA, and David Jeffrey, director of BancBoston Capital Ltd.

About Cloverleaf Communications

Cloverleaf Communications Inc., established in May 2001, has developed a unique and proven intelligent storage networking system for the efficient management and non-disruptive scaling of heterogeneous data center infrastructures across technologies, products and vendors.  Based on technology from ELTA, a research and development company affiliated with Israel Aircraft Industries, Cloverleaf’s core technology has already been tested and proven with very-high performance and secure communications in defense and commercial applications.  Cloverleaf is privately held.  For more information contact Cloverleaf at 2 Willow Street, Southborough, MA 01745, 508-624-9500 or visit www.cloverleafcomm.com.