San Jose, Calif. — October 31, 2006 — Alacritech® Inc., the innovator of Dynamic TCP Offload™ technology and the first to ship TCP Offload NICs, today announced an expansion of its partnership with emBoot Inc., a supplier of network boot products, to deliver winBoot/i software to Alacritech customers. With this solution, system administrators can deploy dozens of servers in less time than it would take to deploy two servers if they were to use an HBA-based solution. Additionally, users are assured of simplified storage management through centralized administration, improved disaster recovery and reduced costs in IP SAN environments.

Alacritech Accelerators have been qualified to natively support winBoot/i. Microsoft Windows 2003® based servers with Alacritech Accelerators and winBoot/i software can now be booted directly from iSCSI-based storage using the Microsoft iSCSI software initiator.

“By taking advantage of our partnership with emBoot, our customers can now achieve unmatched performance, compatibility, ease of use and simplified storage management,” said Keith Parker, Product Marketing Manager, Alacritech, Inc. “winBoot/i gives our customers the ability to configure new servers, restore failed servers, and manage boot volumes faster and easier than any iSCSI HBA.”

Customers using Alacritech Accelerators with native support for winBoot/i software will receive a number of benefits from the iSCSI boot solution including:

• A common iSCSI boot infrastructure for iSCSI controllers as well as NICs means users no longer have to buy an expensive HBA just to boot from SAN


• Use of the Microsoft iSCSI software initiator ensures better compatibility


• Centralized management of boot volumes reduces administration costs over HBA based solutions


• Network-based administration with centralized boot volume assignment allows rapid recovery of failed servers


• Integrated Alacritech support included in new Client Deployment Tool provides offline access to local disk for migration to iSCSI storage media

“Expanding our partnership with Alacritech to include winBoot/i means customers now have a pre-tested, certified, and supported solution set for booting Windows 2003 servers from iSCSI storage,” said George Kostiuk, CEO, emBoot Inc. “Customers can now realize the many benefits of a centrally managed iSCSI boot environment while leveraging the advanced capabilities offered by Alacritech Accelerators.”

About Alacritech Accelerators
The Alacritech SEN2000 family of TCP-Offload Network Interface Cards (TNICs) and the SES2000 family of iSCSI controllers each consist of eight models that are available in copper or fiber versions, and range between one and four ports with support for either the PCI-X or PCIe bus. Both product lines support iSCSI boot to enable diskless systems to perform iSCSI boot from an IP SAN. Alacritech Accelerators support Windows Server 2003, Windows XP and Windows 2000. All Alacritech Accelerators are based on the company’s proven SLIC Technology architecture to deliver unmatched performance and efficiency. All Alacritech products offer industry-standard failover and link aggregation. For more information on iSCSI boot with Alacritech Accelerators, please visit http://www.alacritech.com/Products/Overview.aspx.

About emBoot winBoot/i
winBoot/i software uses Microsoft’s iSCSI Software Enabled SAN boot architecture to boot Microsoft Windows Server 2003 from an iSCSI SAN using the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator. winBoot/i’s ability to centralize the operating system of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 provides substantial management benefits and cost reductions via consolidation of IT resources. winBoot/i offers a compelling solution for reducing complexity in the server room or data center. Servers and blades can reduce heat and power consumption by booting from iSCSI, eliminating the need for local hard disks.

About emBoot Inc.
emBoot provides network boot products that significantly reduce the cost and complexity of administrating servers, desktops, POS terminals and embedded systems. Worldwide, millions of networked devices boot using emBoot products. For more information, please visit www.emBoot.com.