What:

Experts from Network Appliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: NTAP) will address best practices for Microsoft? SQL Server 2005 databases operating on NetApp? storage systems at multiple SQL Server 2005 launch locations across North America-beginning on November 7, 2005, in San Francisco.

Thought leaders from NetApp, an honorary gold sponsor of the event, and Microsoft will discuss the role of storage area networks (SANs) and SQL Server 2005 databases for managing critical information and will highlight the strong relationship between the two companies.

Sessions:

"SQL Server 2005 and SANs: Effective Deployment Strategies," will be presented by Jonas Irwin, SQL Server technical engineer at NetApp. Irwin will address ways to maximize SQL Server 2005 performance and availability, highlighting tools, processes, and architectures that can be used with SQL 2005 in a NetApp SAN environment. An interactive Q&A session will immediately follow. Specific session dates and locations are listed below:

Thursday, November 10—1:45 p.m. CT-Chicago, IL
Tuesday, November 22—1:00 p.m. ET-New York, NY
Wednesday, November 30—1:45 p.m. CT-Dallas, TX
Thursday, December 15—TBD-Boston, MA
Wednesday, January 11—TBD-Washington, DC

Dates:

NetApp experts will be present in each launch city across the country (see full schedule below).

November 7, 2005—Moscone Center-San Francisco, CA
November 10, 2005—McCormick Place-Chicago, IL
November 22, 2005—Sheraton-New York, NY
November 30, 2005—Convention Center-Dallas, TX
December 15, 2005—Convention & Exhibit Center-Boston, MA
January 11, 2006—Convention Center-Washington, DC

URL:

www.microsoft.com/events/2005launchevents/selectcity.mspx

Press Contact:

Liz Reid
Voce Communications for Network Appliance, Inc.
(650) 228-5179
ereid@vocecomm.com