Features - Storage Innovations:

EMULEX DELIVERS NEW InSpeed EMBEDDED STORAGE SWITCHES

Emulex Corp, a market leader in Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) and leading provider of building blocks for intelligent storage networking technologies, announced two new InSpeed Embedded Storage Switch products, to meet growing customer demand and expanded applications for back-end embedded storage switches. The InSpeed Embedded Storage Switch Models 350 and 370 are based on Emulex's InSpeed Switch-on-a-Chip (SOC) 320 embedded storage switching technology, which incorporates unique new capabilities such as Automatic Trunking, Fairness and Prioritization and advanced diagnostic capabilities. To date, leading storage solution providers that have deployed solutions with the new InSpeed Models 350 and 370 products include BlueArc Corp and Quantum Corp.

"With their core switching technology based on Emulex's InSpeed SOC 320 technology, the new InSpeed 350 and 370 have additional features and functionality to improve and enhance storage array and tape library reliability and performance," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of Worldwide Marketing for Emulex. "When combined with the field experience of our customer engineering teams, who have helped leading OEMs seamlessly usher switched back-end architectures to market, we feel the value proposition associated with these two new products is significant."

Emulex's award-winning and field-proven InSpeed technology improves storage system RAS (Reliability, Availability and Serviceability) and performance while scaling, by bringing switched connectivity inside disk and tape-based storage systems. The new InSpeed Embedded Storage Switches are box-based, drop-in solutions, which are ideal for "Root Switch" and "Fully Switched Architecture" implementations. Root Switch implementations place switched connectivity between the storage controller (or NAS head) and the drive shelves within in the storage array, and can also be similarly deployed into tape libraries. Fully Switched Architectures, implemented as a Root Switch in conjunction with Emulex InSpeed SOC technology in a Switched Bunch of Disks (SBOD), maximize RAS and performance.

"BlueArc was an early adopter of InSpeed technology, which we have relied upon as a key component of our industry leading network storage systems to enhance performance and reliability," said Geoff Barrall, chief technology officer of BlueArc Corp. "We have now implemented the new InSpeed Model 350 to bring additional levels of functionality to the solutions we offer our customers."

"As a leading provider of disk and tape storage systems for the enterprise environment, Quantum is pleased to incorporate the Emulex InSpeed Model 370 with our new DX100 enhanced backup system," said Dave Kenyon, director of Enterprise Product Marketing for Quantum Storage Systems. "This seamless integration allows Quantum customers to scale the DX100 system, up to 64TB, to meet their ever-increasing backup and restore needs."

The InSpeed Model 350 is a fully managed 1U, half-rack form factor 12-port non-blocking switch. The InSpeed Model 370 is also a fully managed 1U, full-rack form factor 20-port non-blocking switch with redundant power supplies and fans for maximum availability. With its 20 ports and advanced Stealth Intelligent Change Management capabilities, the new InSpeed Model 370 is particularly well suited for creating switched back-end infrastructures in tape libraries to create a Switched Bunch of Tapes (SBOT), where specific connectivity configuration requirements and an uninterrupted stream of data transfer are primary considerations.