Features - Enterprise Data Insights:

ALACRITECH AND LEADING VENDORS SHOWCASE IP STORAGE APPS

Alacritech Inc, an innovator of network accelerator solutions that enable fast and efficient servers and storage systems, hosted a multi-vendor, real-world IP storage application demonstration at the Storage Networking World (SNW) conference. Alacritech, along with EqualLogic, FalconStor Software, SANRAD, and StoneFly Networks, showed IP-based solutions supporting common business applications such as data access, storage consolidation, storage volume management and backup, and video streaming. These solutions enable customers to deploy, manage and scale data access and protection environments, while leveraging existing infrastructure.

"The key business benefit of IP-based storage networking is its ability to leverage existing Ethernet networks, when moving from direct-attached storage to the more cost-effective and easy-to-manage storage area networks," said Barry Haaser, vice president of marketing, Alacritech Inc. "Alacritech's 1000x1 Gigabit Ethernet accelerator running in a variety of real-world network configurations re-enforces what hundreds of our customers already know -- IP SANs are ready for deployment and are being implemented with great success."

Alacritech is a pioneer of TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE) technology. Its 1000x1 Gigabit Ethernet Server and Storage Accelerator, or Integrated Storage Network Interface Card (IS-NIC), has been shipping since October 2001. Alacritech's IS-NIC is well known as providing customers with the most efficient TCP/IP offload and the industry's top network and server performance. Alacritech showcased customer applications and the benefits derived in two separate iSCSI configurations.

The first configuration showed a video streaming application powered by Alacritech's IS-NIC connected to iSCSI products from Cisco Systems, Nishan Systems, SANRAD, and StoneFly Networks. The demonstration effectively showed how the IS-NIC increases performance and throughput in a video streaming application by enabling the industry's lowest CPU utilization, while simultaneously displaying wire-speed throughput to managed storage volumes. In addition, the demonstration showed mission-critical failover and teaming capabilities of Alacritech's accelerators while running live iSCSI data traffic. The iSCSI storage targets, including StoneFly Networks' Storage Concentrator, SANRAD's iSCSI V Switch, Nishan Systems IPS 3300 and Cisco Systems SN 5428 Storage Router, all ran iSCSI draft version 8.

In another configuration in Alacritech's booth, the company demonstrated rapid access to data storage, IP-based volume management and data backup. Alacritech's IS-NIC ran in conjunction with FalconStor's IPStor to demonstrate rapid data access through Microsoft Exchange while VERITAS NetBackup and Volume Manager was used to access self managing iSCSI intelligent storage provided by EqualLogic.

Customers Recognize the Value of iSCSI Interoperability Today

Through these demonstrations, Alacritech and its vendor partners confirmed that IP-based SANs have not only been tested for interoperability, but drive real-world business applications. These solutions assure customers that they can extend existing infrastructures to reduce the complexity and cost in storage networks, while retaining the performance and scalability traditionally associated with Fibre-Channel SANs.

"We are currently running and demonstrating Alacritech's 1000x1 Gigabit Ethernet TOE cards in conjunction with SANRAD's iSCSI V Switch and have been very pleased with the results," said Andy Seltzer, vice president of Even Enterprises, a system integrator based in N. Hollywood, California. "These companies are providing solutions that truly benefit end users and solve existing business issues -- we're now deploying a heterogeneous SAN from these suppliers and achieving enormous performance benefits."

About Alacritech Acceleration Technology

Alacritech's 1000x1 Single-port Server and Storage Accelerators are the only Integrated Storage Network Interface Cards to provide hardware acceleration for both IP storage and standard Ethernet traffic. Alacritech's complete line of products is based on the company's patented SLIC Technology, a TCP/IP data-path offload and acceleration architecture proven to deliver the most efficient, top-performing server and storage traffic acceleration possible. All Alacritech products offer industry-standard failover and link aggregation. By optimizing TCP/IP performance in servers and storage devices, Alacritech is driving a new generation of solutions that deliver industry-leading performance for Internet and business applications.

About Alacritech Inc

Alacritech Inc was founded by Larry Boucher, creator of the SCSI interface, to deliver upon his vision of eliminating the server bottleneck. Today, Alacritech is an innovator of network accelerator solutions that enable fast and efficient servers and storage systems. Alacritech's products are based on the company's patented SLIC (session-layer interface control) Technology to optimize the performance of servers, network-attached storage and iSCSI storage devices. SLIC Technology is the first fully compatible and scalable technology to offload network protocol processing, primarily TCP/IP, from software on the host system to silicon on the adapter. Based in San Jose, California, Alacritech is privately held. Alacritech is a member of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance, the iSCSI Consortium and the Storage Networking Association (SNIA) as well as a founding member of the SNIA IP Storage Forum. For more information about Alacritech and its products, please visit the company's Web site at www.alacritech.com.

Contact: Jane Wang of Alacritech Inc, 408-487-5726, jwang@alacritech.com.