Storage:

DataDirect S2As, w/VERITAS, Provide SAN/NAS Convergence

DataDirect Networks, a leading provider of the world's highest performance storage networking appliances, demonstrated their enabling Silicon Storage Appliance technology at the fifth annual VERITAS Vision event in Dallas. Silicon Storage Appliances bring a simple and easy way to build, accelerate and scale NAS solutions, extending the VERITAS ServPoint Appliance Software for NAS infrastructure, and bringing SAN-based efficiencies to NAS environments.

On display was the company's Silicon Storage Appliance technology which, when used in conjunction with VERITAS ServPoint NAS solutions, brings together robust, mature SAN and NAS technology to create a complete storage network infrastructure. Using these two solutions, IT professionals can create a highly scalable, simple to deploy and easy-to-manage storage networking infrastructure that brings the best of both SAN and NAS to deliver lower total cost of ownership and increased return on IT investments.

"Silicon Storage Appliances, operating in conjunction with VERITAS ServPoint NAS software, brings a best-of-breed solution to IT professionals looking for the competitive advantage that an integrated SAN and NAS solution can provide," Robert Woolery, vice president corporate development, DataDirect Networks, said. "By combining our high performance, plug-and-play and cost-effective SAN appliance with VERITAS ServPoint Appliance Software for NAS, we can provide IT professionals with a network storage solution that accelerates application performance, simplifies information management and lowers operating costs."

VERITAS VISION showcases the latest storage technology innovations, architectures and solutions with VERITAS products under one roof, and is seen as an event where IT professionals can learn about new trends in storage and share solutions to lower total costs of ownership, stretching valuable IT resources. At VERITAS VISION, DataDirect exhibited two of their S2A 3000 Silicon Storage Appliances in a "couplet" implementation, which offers a fully redundant, high performance SAN infrastructure in a 2U high form factor.

"As storage management professionals continue to face the challenges of rapidly changing technology and explosive growth of storage, it is increasingly difficult to control costs while meeting service-level agreements and ensuring access to business-critical information," said Ruth Colombo, senior product marketing manager for NAS and SAN products, VERITAS Software. "DataDirect Networks, with their Silicon Storage Appliance technology, is leveraging VERITAS ServPoint Appliance Software for NAS to provide additional benefits to end-users, creating a best-of-breed solution that addresses the challenging needs of high performance computing."

DataDirect Networks has created highly scalable, simple-to-deploy and easy-to-manage Silicon Storage Appliances to accelerate application performance, simplify information management, and lower operating costs.

Silicon Storage Appliance technology allows the high performance computing community to accelerate their applications, providing data at least three times faster than existing Storage Area Networking (SAN) solutions and ten times faster than Network Attached Storage (NAS) technology. The acceleration of data to applications and users -- simply and easily -- allows DataDirect Networks' customers to consolidate their storage; the Silicon Storage Appliance technology allows management of up to 100 Terabytes by a single system administrator, providing 10x lower total cost of ownership.

With the ability to supply an aggregate bandwidth of 800 megabytes per second and support up to 512 servers and 180 terabytes of storage, the S2A 6000 Silicon Storage Appliance brings performance and scalability benefits to scientific and commercial supercomputing centers. The S2A 3000, based on enterprise-class S2A 6000 technology, brings a simple to deploy, easy to manage and affordable storage network appliance that supplies an aggregate bandwidth up to 400 megabytes per second (depending on requirements) to workgroups typically consisting of one to eight Linux, Unix, Windows NT/2000, Sun, AIX, HP-UX and SGI compute nodes. The S2A 3000 can easily manage storage network environments ranging in capacity from 500GB to 7 Terabytes.

Customers using DataDirect's Silicon Storage Appliances include Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, NASA, NCSA, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NOAA Forecast Systems Lab, U.S. Army Research Lab, White Sands Missile Range, National Century Financial Enterprises, Time Warner Cable, E! Networks, CineGroupe, RTL Television, Loudeye, Star TV, Sonic Foundry, among others. DataDirect SAN partnerships include industry leaders VERITAS Software, Seagate, Emulex and QLogic, among others.

About DataDirect Networks

DataDirect Networks is a leader in the rapidly growing market for intelligent storage networking appliances. Serving IT professionals in the scientific, government, defense, broadcasting, digital production, and oil and gas industries, DataDirect Networks' Silicon Storage Appliances make it easy, simple and trouble-free to accelerate and manage applications, dramatically reducing TCO and increasing ROI. For more information, visit www.datadirectnet.com.

Contact Jim Hughes, DataDirect Networks Inc, 818-700-7655, jhughes@datadirectnet.com.