Alacritech Announces General Availability of the Industry's First
Gigabit Ethernet Accelerator for both Networking and Storage
Patented Data-path Offload Technology to Further
Penetrate Market through Multiple Distribution Channels
San Jose, Calif., — April 15, 2002 — Alacritech®, Inc., the innovator of accelerator solutions that enable fast and efficient servers and storage systems, today announced the general availability of its 1000x1 Single-port Server and Storage Accelerator, the industry's first Integrated Storage Network Interface Card (IS-NIC) to simultaneously accelerate both IP storage and standard Ethernet traffic. Alacritech's Gigabit Ethernet Server and Storage Accelerator has been available for OEM integration since October 2001. Today, Alacritech is shipping to end users through its channel partners and Web site.
"We've solidified several OEM partnerships and are now pleased to offer our Gigabit Ethernet Accelerator through our channel partners to further increase its market penetration," said Kim Peyser, senior vice president of marketing and sales, Alacritech, Inc. "This is the first accelerator on the market that delivers true value to the customer."
Accelerates Medical Imaging and Video Streaming Applications
"At Erlanger Health System, we regularly transfer extremely large medical imaging files and accounting spreadsheets and needed a way to significantly increase our network throughput, but we were also looking to extend the life of our servers and desktops-we knew if we could effectively offload TCP/IP processing, the cards would immediately pay for themselves by allowing us to get the maximum performance out of our servers," said John Haltom, network director, Erlanger Health System. "We installed a range of Alacritech accelerator cards in a variety of servers at all levels of horsepower. Based on the phenomenal increase in throughput, we're planning an end-to-end Alacritech network and will work toward installing the cards in up to 2,000 of our desktops to gain a better ROI in our workstation space as well."
"We first installed the Alacritech Ethernet accelerator to enhance our video streaming capabilities," said Hubert Daugherty, senior systems designer, Rice University. "After installing the Alacritech Ethernet accelerator, the dramatic reduction in CPU utilization allowed us to stream video at a much higher bit rate and to spend more processor time compressing video using a higher quality algorithm. We are now using the Gigabit version of the Alacritech Ethernet accelerator for iSCSI. The use of the Alacritech accelerator allows the capturing of DV format video directly into our SAN, which, in turn, minimizes the need to subsequently copy multi-gigabyte video files."
About SLIC Technology®-based TCP/IP Acceleration
Alacritech's SLIC Technology, a patented TCP/IP data-path offload methodology, effectively addresses the network processing bottleneck by offloading network processing typically performed in host software, to the company's proprietary ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) on the adapter, sharply reducing system CPU and memory overhead. With SLIC Technology, data movement is handled in hardware on the adapter and control and error handling remain in software on the host server, enabling a significantly more streamlined accelerator than TCP/IP full offload solutions. Centralized software control provides link aggregation and failover support using industry-standard Gigabit EtherChannel and 802.3ad Link Aggregation protocols. SLIC Technology solves system performance bottlenecks created by traditional network interface architectures including memory traffic, CPU interrupts and PCI traffic.
Alacritech 1000x1 Single-port Server and Storage Accelerator
- Third-generation, single-chip TCP accelerator for 10/100/1000Base-T port
- Power- and space-optimized for server, iSCSI and NAS applications
- Offloads TCP/IP and iSCSI processing from the host CPU to silicon on the adapter
- Accelerates network performance to full wire speed
- Reduces system overhead, reduces network latency
- Fully interoperable with industry-standard hubs, routers, and switches
- Provides link aggregation and failover.
Alacritech's 1000x1 Single-port Server and Storage Accelerators are now available for a suggested list price of $999 by contacting Alacritech's channel partners or accessing the company's Web site.
About Alacritech, Inc.
Alacritech was founded by Larry Boucher, creator of the SCSI interface, to deliver upon his vision of eliminating the server bottleneck. Today, Alacritech, Inc. is the innovator of network accelerator solutions that enable fast and efficient servers and storage systems. Alacritech's complete line of high-performance server and storage accelerators is based on the company's patented SLIC (session-layer interface card) Technology to optimize the performance of servers, network-attached storage and iSCSI storage devices. SLIC Technology is the first fully compatible and scalable technology to offload network protocol processing, primarily TCP/IP, from software on the host system to silicon on the adapter. Based in San Jose, California, Alacritech is privately held. Alacritech is a member of the 10 Gigabit Ethernet Alliance and the Storage Networking Association (SNIA) and a founding member of the SNIA IP Storage Forum. For more information about Alacritech and its products, please visit the company's Web site at www.alacritech.com.
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Alacritech, the Alacritech logo, SLIC Technology, and the SLIC Technology logo are registered trademarks of Alacritech, Inc. in the United States. Other marks belong to their respective owners.
Product photo is available upon request.
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