COSTA MESA, Calif., March 27, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX), the most trusted name in storage networking connectivity, today announced that three new members are joining the FC-SATA partnership ecosystem, bringing the total number of supporters to 12 industry leading companies. FC-SATA supporters work cooperatively to develop, test and deploy FC-SATA solutions to storage system manufacturers. Today's new supporters include the remaining major hard disk drive vendors, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies; along with Finisar, a provider of fibre optic and testing solutions.
Support from the new partners further enhances the solution set of FC-SATA supported options, and will be demonstrated in multiple locations -- including the Fibre Channel Industry Association's (FCIA) booth (G10) as a part of a tiered storage demonstration, and in Fujitsu's booth (PP1) -- during the April 2006 Storage Networking World (SNW) show in San Diego, Calif. Only one year ago, Emulex proposed the FC-SATA standard, which is designed to natively connect SATA disk drives into Fibre Channel-based storage systems, and in January 2006, the Fibre Channel Industry Association (FCIA) along with ANSI-T11 standards body published the first draft of the FC-SATA standard. The formal standard is expected to be published by early next summer.
FC-SATA is an Emulex-developed technology created to natively connect near-line ready Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives into enterprise storage systems that use Fibre Channel embedded infrastructures. FC-SATA allows vendors to leverage their existing Fibre Channel investments to lower costs by adding cost-effective, near-line storage to new or legacy systems. Along with the support from all the leading hard disk drive vendors and many leading storage companies, and with the eventual inclusion of FC-SATA technology into the Fibre Channel protocol standard, storage system manufacturers can benefit from the improved investment protection and reliability afforded by solutions that incorporate both Fibre Channel and SATA storage in the same solution. More detailed information about FC-SATA can be found at www.emulex.com/fcsata.
"The goal of FC-SATA is to meet the specific capacity and low-cost requirements of near-line storage while also increasing options for end-users and storage system providers," said Mike Smith, vice president of worldwide marketing at Emulex. "The continually expanding ecosystem and broad support for FC-SATA from the storage industry validates Emulex's belief that by creating and implementing multi-protocol technologies, we provide maximum flexibility and investment protection to companies that have deployed switched storage infrastructures."
"The proposed FC-SATA standard offers a significant value proposition for the storage industry, as it will allow end users to incorporate both standards -- and their related advantages -- within the same solution," said Arun Taneja, founder of Taneja Group. "The support of all of the major hard disk vendors only increases the momentum behind the standard and ensures that, upon ratification, the standard will see adoption. And with the recent publishing of the standard's first draft, the ratification process is well under way."
ADDITIONAL COMMENTS FROM FC-SATA SUPPORTERS:
"Fujitsu is the first manufacturer to introduce 2.5-inch SATA hard disk drives to market -- enabling storage system OEMs to create denser, higher performing storage solutions," said Mike Fitzpatrick, senior research executive at Fujitsu Computer Products of America. "As SATA storage densities increase, it makes natural sense as to why end users would want to integrate these storage pools into their existing Fibre Channel infrastructures. The FC-SATA protocol does just that by leveraging their pre-existing, field-proven Fibre Channel investments."
"FC-SATA represents a great opportunity for storage solution providers to expand their existing Fibre Channel infrastructures through the inclusion of natively attached SATA disk drives," said Doug Pickford, director, Product Strategy and Planning, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "The Hitachi Deskstar 7K500 enables storage system OEMs to deliver high capacity, low-cost-per-gigabyte storage for nearline environments, while Fibre Channel drives continue to support mission-critical applications, such as online transaction processing and storage virtualization."
"FC-SATA supports our customers' mission to deliver flexible and robust components for the world's most demanding enterprises. In Xgig(r) 3.0, Finisar enhanced its market leading analysis and test platform to support this new protocol," said Steve Wong, director of product marketing at Finisar. "Fibre Channel customers will capitalize on the benefits associated with the FC-SATA protocol, including investment protection, lower storage system costs, faster time to market and the flexibility to mix and match Fibre Channel and SATA drives in their existing enclosures according to the individual needs of their applications."
About Emulex
Emulex Corporation is the most trusted name in storage networking connectivity, with solutions spanning host bus adapters, embedded storage switches, I/O controllers and SAN Storage Switches. Emulex ranked number 19 in the Deloitte 2005 Technology Fast 50 and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:ELX). Corporate headquarters are located in Costa Mesa, California. News releases and other information about Emulex Corporation are available at http://www.emulex.com.
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"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. All trademarks, trade names, service marks, and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.
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