ALISO VIEJO, Calif., Jan. 11, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- QLogic Corp. (Nasdaq:QLGC), the leader in Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), today announced that its enterprise class 4Gb SANblade(R) Pro Fibre Channel PCI Express (PCIe) and PCI-X 2.0 HBAs are now available from Sun Microsystems. The QLogic SANblade Pro HBAs connect both Sun UltraSPARC(r) and AMD Opteron(tm) processor-based Sun Fire(tm) servers to Sun StorEdge(tm) storage systems in Sun Solaris(tm), Windows and Linux operating system environments. These HBAs feature a suite of innovative technology advancements that result in "A Better 4Gb," for Sun high performance computing customers.
"SANblade 4Gb host bus adapters from QLogic provide storage architects with a SAN infrastructure that matches the performance of their Sun Fire servers and their most demanding applications," said James Whitemore, vice president of product marketing for Sun's Data Management Group. "The Sun StorageTek Enterprise 4Gb FC HBAs now include the QLogic SANblade HBA technology. Sun is providing our customers with the latest 4Gb FC HBA technology to satisfy their IO connectivity requirements."
"A Better 4Gb" HBA
New 4Gb HBAs from QLogic offer a suite of technology advancements that help storage administrators in large enterprises ensure complete business continuity, maintain application performance and cost-effectively scale their networks.
For Better 4Gb Reliability:
-- Overlapping Protection Domains - This QLogic exclusive ensures
that data is not left unprotected, even for the smallest fraction
of time, by generating a new check of parity or ECC before
stripping out the old check. This offers a superior level of
protection, well beyond traditional implementations.
For Better 4Gb Performance:
-- Intelligent Interleaved DMA - Unlike competitive round-robin
schemes for transmitting data in a mixed 1Gb / 2Gb / 4Gb
environment, QLogic HBAs detect the link rate that each target
can support and transmit simultaneously, and at maximum
performance, to each storage device.
-- Out Of Order Frame Reassembly - Only HBAs from QLogic reassemble
frames within an exchange in the correct order, even though
they may have been received out of order. This improves
performance by eliminating the need to retransmit the entire
I/O block.
For Better 4Gb Scalability:
-- Virtual SAN (VSAN) - This QLogic exclusive allows a single HBA
to read VSAN tags in packets sent from a Cisco MDS switch. As
a result, QLogic HBAs can support multiple VSANs, each with a
completely isolated fabric topology and set of fabric services
including name server, zone server, domain controller, alias
server and login server.
"4Gb SANblade adapters from QLogic allow customers to harness the high performance computing power of Sun Fire Servers and StorEdge arrays," said Roger Klein, vice president of marketing, QLogic Corp. "The combination of 4Gb Fibre Channel and Sun Fire Servers with PCI Express and PCI-X 2.0 gives Sun customers unprecedented storage networking bandwidth and I/O performance for demanding applications like backup and high definition television production."
QLogic SANblade Pro Host Bus Adapters - The Market Share Leader
Storage administrators in large enterprises are trusted with nothing less than ensuring complete business continuity. That's why the most popular SANblade HBA models have field-proven reliability of more than 1.7 million hours mean-time-between-failure. QLogic believes superior reliability is also why according to Dell'Oro, Gartner and IDC, QLogic ranked number one in market share for Fibre Channel HBA ports shipped and Fibre Channel HBA revenue in 2004.
About QLogic
QLogic is the leading supplier of Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), blade server embedded Fibre Channel switches and Fibre Channel stackable switches for storage area networks (SANs). The company is also a leading supplier of iSCSI HBAs. QLogic products are delivered to small, medium and large enterprises around the world, powering solutions from leading companies like Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance and Sun Microsystems. QLogic is a member of the S&P 500 Index. For more information visit www.qlogic.com.
Note: All QLogic-issued press releases appear on the Company's website (www.qlogic.com). Any announcement that does not appear on the QLogic website has not been issued by QLogic.
Disclaimer - Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains statements relating to future results of the Company (including certain beliefs and projections regarding business trends) that are "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied in the forward-looking statements. The Company advises readers that these potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: fluctuations in operating results; gross margins may vary over time; revenues may be affected by changes in IT spending levels; our stock price may be volatile; our dependence on the storage area network market; the ability to maintain and gain market or industry acceptance of the Company's products; our dependence on a limited number of customers; seasonal fluctuations and uneven sales patterns in orders from customers; our ability to compete effectively with other companies; declining average unit sales prices of comparable products; a reduction in sales efforts by current distributors; reliance on third party licenses; dependence on sole source and limited source suppliers; our dependence on relationships with certain silicon chip suppliers; the complexity of the Company's products; sales fluctuations arising from customer transitions to new products; the uncertainty associated with SOX 404 compliance; environmental compliance costs; terrorist activities and resulting military actions; international, economic, regulatory, political and other risks; uncertain benefits from strategic business combinations; the ability to maintain or expand upon strategic alliances; the strain on resources caused by growth and expansion; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; the decreased effectiveness of equity compensation; difficulties in transitioning to smaller geometry process technologies; the ability to protect proprietary rights; the ability to satisfactorily resolve any infringement claims; changes in tax laws or adverse tax audit results; computer viruses and other tampering with our computer system; charter documents and stockholder rights plan that may discourage a business combination; and facilities located in areas subject to earthquakes and other natural disasters.
More detailed information on these and additional factors which could affect the Company's operating and financial results are described in the Company's Forms 10-K, 10-Q and other reports filed, or to be filed, with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company urges all interested parties to read these reports to gain a better understanding of the many business and other risks that the Company faces. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made only as of the date hereof, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
QLogic and the QLogic logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of QLogic Corporation. SANblade is a registered trademark in the United States. All other brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.