COSTA MESA, Calif., March 14, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX), the industry's preeminent provider of advanced storage networking infrastructure solutions, today announced it has developed a new technology that enables storage system providers to leverage the reliability and scalability benefits of embedded Fibre Channel storage system infrastructures to incorporate the use of low cost, high capacity Serial ATA (SATA) drive technology. This new technology extends the capabilities of Fibre Channel by enabling the support of SATA disk drives, without the need for system re-design or expensive bridging solutions.
Emulex will demonstrate this new technology next month in a live multi-tiered storage solution at the upcoming Storage Networking World Spring 2005 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition, Emulex intends to present its "SATA Tunneling over Fibre Channel" technology to ANSI T11 board for inclusion into the Fibre Channel protocol as an industry standard.
"What this means for storage solution providers is that existing investments in Fibre Channel infrastructures can be leveraged into multi-tiered storage environments that include low cost Serial ATA drives," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of worldwide marketing for Emulex Corporation. "This new technology also provides a solution to the scalability limitations inherent to SATA-based storage by extending the scalability and reliability of an embedded Fibre Channel infrastructure to include low cost SATA drive-based SBODs(tm) (Switched Bunch Of Disks). This new technology drives cost out of disk storage connectivity, while extending Fibre Channel's functionality and protecting storage providers existing investments."
SATA drive usage is increasingly popular with enterprise solution manufacturers looking to create systems that offer greater capacity at a lower cost. This is fueling the use of multi-tiered storage environments, in which high performance, high availability Fibre Channel disks are used for on-line data processing, and lower costs drives are used for document retention and other large volume storage needs.
Agilent Technologies is a leading provider of storage networking components and test solutions, as well as a charter member of the Fibre Channel Industry Association. "The availability of SATA Tunneling over Fibre Channel Technology could benefit the industry by giving storage OEM's and end-user IT managers a cost-effective solution for SATA drive connectivity," said Kevin Burbank, marketing manager for the I/O Solutions Division in Agilent's Semiconductor Products Group. "Furthermore, the ability to leverage their investment in a proven Fibre Channel infrastructure enables solution providers and end-users to implement SATA drive technologies into their solutions inexpensively."
How SATA Tunneling Over Fibre Channel Technology Works
In embedded Fibre Channel storage system environments, the RAID controller enables communication and data flow to Fibre Channel disk drives. To enable SATA drive usage in this environment today, costly chip-based bridging products are added to the RAID controller board or drive enclosure to facilitate communication with SATA drives. By incorporating "SATA Tunneling over Fibre Channel" technology into the Fibre Channel I/O controller chips on the RAID board and InSpeed embedded storage switches, the requirement for costly bridging products is completely eliminated.
"Because of the importance of this technology in terms of enabling lower cost disk storage systems, we intend to drive this to adoption as an industry standard," adds Smith. "Emulex expects that, upon adoption by the industry standards bodies, itself and others will incorporate support for this technology in future generations of devices."
Werner Glinka, Chairman of the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA), comments, "We believe that SATA Tunneling over Fibre Channel technology could be a valuable addition to the Fibre Channel protocol, and we look forward to Emulex's presentation to the T11 committee. The Fibre Channel user community has invested heavily in building mission critical Fibre Channel storage infrastructures, and this new technology offers Fibre Channel users a logical and inexpensive migration path to multi-tiered storage and ILM implementations leveraging these investments."
Attendees of the upcoming Storage Networking World Spring 2005 Conference in Phoenix, Arizona on April 12-15th who wish to find out more about SATA Tunneling over Fibre Channel Technology can view a live demonstration at the Emulex booth (# P21).
About Emulex
Emulex Corporation is the industry's preeminent source for a broad range of advanced storage networking infrastructure solutions spanning host bus adapters, embedded storage switches, I/O controllers and SAN Storage Switches. Emulex ranked number 16 in the Deloitte 2004 Technology Fast 50 and most recently received recognition as one of Forbes 200 Best Small Companies.
The world's leading server and storage providers rely on Emulex HBAs, embedded storage switching and I/O controller products to build reliable, scalable and high performance storage solutions. The Emulex award-winning product families, including its LightPulse(tm) HBAs and InSpeed(tm) embedded storage switching products, are based on internally developed ASIC, firmware and software technologies, and offer customers high performance, scalability, flexibility and reduced total cost of ownership. The company's products have been selected by the world's leading server and storage providers, including Dell, EMC, Fujitsu Ltd., Fujitsu Siemens, Bull, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, Engenio, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance, Quantum Corp., StorageTek, Sun Microsystems, Unisys and Xyratex. In addition, Emulex includes industry leaders Brocade, Computer Associates, Intel, McDATA, Microsoft and VERITAS among its strategic partners. Corporate headquarters are located in Costa Mesa, California. News releases and other information about Emulex Corporation are available at http://www.emulex.com.
EMULEX -- We network storage
"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. The company wishes to caution readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include the rapidly changing nature of technology, evolving industry standards and frequent introductions of new products and enhancements by competitors; fluctuation in the growth of Fibre Channel and IP markets; changes in economic conditions or changes in end-user demand for technology solutions; fluctuations or delays in customer orders; the highly competitive nature of the markets for Emulex's products; Emulex's ability to gain market acceptance for its products; the company's ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; the company's reliance on third-party suppliers. These and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are also discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q.