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SNIA IPS FORUM ANNOUNCES iSCSI STANDARD READY FOR PRIME TIME

The Storage Network Industry Association IP Storage Forum (SNIA IPS Forum) and its member companies have announced that the Internet Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) standard has reached a significant milestone with the completion of the IETF IPS Working Group's last call.

At this point, the standard is technically complete and accurate with only minor editorial comments remaining, and now IP Storage Forum member companies are poised to move forward in delivering rich new sets of storage networking products and solutions based on the final draft version of the standard.

"We are ready to rock and roll," said Brice Clark, SNIA IP Storage Forum marketing chair. "IP Storage Forum members are busy getting the final versions of products that fully implement the new standard ready for interoperability testing and, of course, introduction and customer shipment."

The SNIA IP Storage Forum expects its members to roll out an array of products that support the new standard by late fall 2002 or early 2003. While iSCSI has been featured as an emerging technology at several industry trade shows, iSCSI products will move into the mainstream demonstrations at the fall Storage Networking World conference in Orlando. Pre-standard products have been available for specific applications, however the stable standard signals a much more complete set of products for building robust storage networks on Ethernet and the ubiquitous TCP/IP infrastructure.

"The arrival of a technically complete and accurate draft of the iSCSI standard opens the road for the storage industry to embark on the next logical stage of developing networked storage based on iSCSI and Ethernet," said Ahmad Zamer, chairman of the SNIA IP Storage Forum iSCSI Group. "Our members can now develop their IP storage solutions enabling the convergence of storage and networking using iSCSI as the magic ingredient of convergence."

Interoperability has been a key objective of the SNIA IP Storage Forum members since its formation in March of 2001. "The goal of all our members is to deliver robust products that plug-and-play to create easy-to-deploy storage networking solutions," said Bill Lynn, SNIA IP Storage Forum co-chair.

The SNIA IP Storage Forum includes more than 50 member companies and was established to market and promote standards-based block storage networking solutions using IP networks including iSCSI, FCIP and iFCP.

About the SNIA

The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) is a not-for-profit organization, made up of over 200 companies and individuals spanning virtually the entire storage industry. SNIA members share a common goal: to set the pace of the industry by ensuring that storage networks become efficient, complete and trusted solutions across the IT community. To this end the SNIA is uniquely committed to delivering standards, education and services that will propel open storage networking solutions into the broader market. For information, contact the SNIA at 650-949-6720, via e-mail at executivedirector@snia.org, or the SNIA Website at www.snia.org.

INDUSTRY PARTICIPANTS:

Adaptec Inc

"iSCSI technology has the unique capability to combine the benefits of SANs with the familarity and ubiquity of Ethernet. As an early proponent of iSCSI, Adaptec has supported and helped drive the iSCSI specification from the beginning. With this significant milestone behind us, the impetus for iSCSI broad adoption becomes even stronger."

• Ram Jayam, vice president and general manager of Adaptec's Storage Networking Group

Agilent Technologies Inc

"As a leading proponent of iSCSI storage networking technology, Agilent is pleased to support the iSCSI specification. Over the past year, we've been very active with standardization efforts and industry interoperability tests, and we are now prepared to introduce our first iSCSI-compliant component and subsystem solutions later this year. iSCSI offers numerous user benefits such as allowing block level data to be accessed anywhere within an IP/Ethernet network, and providing a cost-effective storage networking solution that's easy to install, manage and service."

• Martin Scott, vice president and general manager, Storage and Networking Division

Alacritech Inc

"As the creator of SCSI over 20 years ago, I'm personally pleased to witness the industry adoption of the iSCSI standard to enable the true merger of storage and networking. The ratification of iSCSI will make storage easier to architect, deploy, scale, and maintain."

• Larry Boucher, founder and chief executive officer

Cisco Systems Inc

"The promise of iSCSI is that it opens up new, more flexible storage networking architectures that span greater distances, incorporate more servers and users, creates interoperable storage networks, and lowers the total cost of owning and managing storage. Industry milestones such as achieving the IETF's ratification for iSCSI are clear indications to end users that iSCSI and its benefits are real."

• Doug Ingraham, senior manager at the Cisco Storage Technology Group and the IPSF finance chair

CNT

"The iSCSI protocol will offer our customers another cost effective option that meets their storage networking needs," said. "CNT supports this emerging industry standard, and is pleased to be involved with the iSCSI specification project."

• Brian Larsen, senior director of product management

Crossroads Systems Inc

"Crossroads' commitment to our customers requires we deliver interoperable standards-based products, so we are excited about the release of the iSCSI standard. Crossroads contributed to the iSCSI specification in participation with members of the IP Storage Forum, and believes the new standard now enables the practical integration of iSCSI technology. Crossroads already provides multiprotocol storage routing for Fibre Channel and SCSI connectivity -- and will now deliver complementary iSCSI connectivity -- for attaching tape libraries, legacy servers, and other native-SCSI devices into storage networks."

• Robert Griswold, chief technologist

Emulex Corporation

"Completion of the iSCSI standard is an important milestone for storage networking. The use of standard networking technologies to move block storage has the promise to bring storage networking technology to a new class of users. As the leader in storage networking adapters, Emulex is committed to working with the storage networking community to bring scalable, high performance iSCSI solutions to the market."

• Mike Smith, EVP of worldwide marketing

FalconStor Software Inc

"iSCSI will give companies more flexibility, and a cost-effective solution to manage a company's storage infrastructure. FalconStor is committed to fully supporting iSCSI," said. "IPStor, iSCSI compliant today, offers broad interoperability and a complete suite of applications such as backup/restore acceleration, snapshots, disk journaling, virtualization, and disaster recovery. The completion of the iSCSI specification is a significant step to making heterogeneous IP SANs a reality."

• Wayne Lam, vice president

IBM

"IBM's storage networking strategy is designed to embrace multiple complementary networking "fabrics" including iSCSI. iSCSI holds great promise due to its use of `familiar' IP networks which can help cut complexity and provide reduced cost of ownership for directly addressable pooled storage solutions. As one of the original creators of iSCSI technology, IBM applauds the IETF's completion of this specification, which is the next significant step in the emergence of iSCSI as the true open standard for transport of SCSI commands over IP."

• Paul Mattson, manager of IP Storage for IBM Storage Systems Group

iVivity Inc.

"We believe IP Storage is an important development in the evolution of Storage networks. For this reason, iVivity has actively participated in the development of the iSCSI standard and will build next generation products that confirm to this standard."

• Sukha Ghosh, CTO

Nishan Systems

"Recognizing customers' preference for IP related networking technologies, Nishan Systems is pleased to work with members of the IP Storage Forum in developing complete iSCSI solutions. The rapid maturity of iSCSI products, and the ability to integrate iSCSI seamlessly with existing Fibre Channel infrastructure provides longstanding IP-related benefits such as familiar, flexible, cost-effective, high-performance networking. The completion of the iSCSI specification gives IP Storage adopters further confidence to build and expand IP Storage deployments."

• Gary Orenstein, Director of Marketing

Pirus Networks

"The completion of the iSCSI specification is a critical milestone and proofpoint for the viability of storage over IP. Support for iSCSI is a key component of Pirus' multi-protocol approach to storage networking. iSCSI services will allow applications and users to access block storage locally within their LAN or remotely over MAN and WAN topologies, thus leveraging existing IP infrastructure and staff to achieve the benefits of storage consolidation and reduced complexity."

• Mark Lovington, VP marketing

QLogic Corporation

"QLogic has always supported open standards, and we believe strongly that they are the key to success for SAN and storage technologies. The completion of the standard will accelerate the market adoption of iSCSI by providing customers the freedom to select best of class solutions. iSCSI products offer a technology that complements Fibre Channel to address the wide variety of a SAN end user needs."

• Graeme Plant, director of QLogic iSCSI products

StoneFly Networks Inc

"The ratification and adoption of the iSCSI standard will further drive customer adoption of IP-based storage and network solutions. Currently, installing a traditional SAN can be very expensive and many mid-to-small enterprises have not been able to take advantage of an integrated storage network. The iSCSI standard enables users running standard Ethernet networks to implement IP-based SANs which ensures complete interoperability across the SAN, lower entry and on-going management costs, and expels the idea of SANs not being cost-effective."

• Allen F. Yuhas, president and CEO

StoreAge Networking Technologies

"iSCSI technology can dramatically lower the cost of SANs by leveraging the TCP/IP infrastructures and administrative expertise that already exist in most organizations today. StoreAge's SAN-based storage management software converts easily to iSCSI, and provides critical functions like provisioning, snapshot, replication and mirroring across multiple storage devices in an iSCSI SAN. And, now that the iSCSI specification has been completed, we believe the marketplace will begin adopting iSCSI technology at a rapid pace."

• Mark Spowart, president

Contact: Max Shu, Storage Networking Industry Association, 719-884-8903, marketingmanager@snia.org.