Alacritech Introduces New Products to Address All Segments of Server,
Storage and Networking Markets
TOE-ready NICs, SLICware Acceleration Suite, and TOE and iSCSI ASICs Available Now
for Applications from Desktop to Data Center
San Jose, Calif., — August 19, 2002 — Alacritech®, Inc., the innovator of network accelerator solutions that enable fast and efficient servers and storage systems, today announced that the company is broadening product lines and introducing new products to provide all segments of storage and networking markets with the industry's first TCP/IP offload engine (TOE) and acceleration software. Extending its full line of server and storage accelerators, Alacritech today makes available TOE-ready Gigabit Ethernet server adapters, SLICware¹ Acceleration Suite, and the Gigabit Ethernet Internet Protocol Processor (IPP) ASIC. Alacritech now addresses customer needs in the low to high end of the server, storage and networking markets with targeted solutions and a cost-effective upgrade strategy.
"Alacritech's high-performance TCP acceleration technology has enjoyed great success in the network-attached storage and digital media production areas," said Larry Boucher, president and CEO, Alacritech, Inc. "Alacritech is extending its leadership position with the availability of its acceleration software and TOE-ready hardware products. These new products address the broad needs of our customers in the server, storage and networking markets. We believe that at Gigabit and faster speeds, TCP acceleration is required everywhere. Now our customers can enable TCP acceleration and iSCSI today or in the future. That is really powerful."
Customer Benefits
For the first time, users can guarantee TOE and iSCSI scalability on all their systems by implementing Alacritech's new Gigabit Ethernet server adapter, copper or fiber optic version. Alacritech's full range of server and storage accelerators, server adapters and ASICs are based on SLIC Technology®, a patented, proven methodology for offloading and accelerating TCP/IP. Alacritech's new server adapters and SLICware Acceleration Suite lower the cost of entry for TOE and iSCSI. OEMs can now integrate the Alacritech IPP ASIC in servers or storage appliances at nominal cost over a standard Gigabit controller to create a TOE-ready system and then subsequently activate TOE to further extend value.
"One of the biggest challenges for OEM and enterprise customers requiring TOE is the ubiquitous availability of the technology," said Dan Tanner, director of storage, Aberdeen Group. "Alacritech has figured out how to lower the entry cost and offer product differentiation and flexibility through dynamically configurable solutions. TOE-ready systems including blade servers can now be deployed, and TCP functionality can be increased on a system-by-system basis, without ever having to replace hardware. This provides great value to both the OEM and end users."
New TOE- and iSCSI-ready NICs
Alacritech's first software-upgradeable TOE-ready network interface cards (NICs) include the Alacritech 1000x1 Copper Gigabit Adapter and the Alacritech 1000x1F Fiber Gigabit Adapter. Gigabit TOE functionality is built in the product, so customers can simply select to accelerate network traffic and/or iSCSI at the time of purchase, or subsequently through a simple remote upgrade using either SLICware iSCSI Acceleration software or the SLICware Network Acceleration software. The NICs are targeted for entry-level and mid-range NAS systems, servers, and iSCSI clients.
1000x1 Gigabit Adapter Features:
- Offers a 10/100/1000Base-T port or one 1000Base-SX port
- Supports teaming using link aggregation and failover
- Supports checksum offload
- Supports jumbo frames
- Upgradeable to support TCP/IP data-path offload and iSCSI
New SLICware Acceleration Suite
Alacritech's SLICware Acceleration Suite provides an easy and cost-effective solution for upgrading Alacritech Gigabit Ethernet server adapters. Users can enable the TCP offload functionality on-the-fly when needed, without hardware upgrades or system reboots. SLICware's flexibility is a direct result of the Alacritech IPP ASIC, which combines the functionality of a standard NIC and a TCP protocol processor within a single chip. SLICware software, in combination with the IPP, determines which ports can take advantage of TCP/IP and iSCSI acceleration.
SLICware Acceleration Suite Products:
- SLICware Network Acceleration for general-purpose servers, application servers, video servers, NAS appliances, database servers, and data-center servers
- SLICware iSCSI Acceleration for iSCSI clients, iSCSI servers, iSCSI storage switches, and iSCSI storage subsystems
- SLICware Toolkit for any custom operating environment including network and storage appliances, custom disk or tape subsystems, or NAS systems
SLICware Acceleration Suite Features:
- Offloads TCP/IP and iSCSI processing from system to the IPP ASIC
- Accelerates network performance to full wire speed
- Supports link aggregation and failover
New Gigabit Ethernet ASIC
Alacritech's 1000x1 IPP ASIC is the industry's most advanced design, achieving the wire-speed throughput at 220 megabytes per second with less than 8% CPU utilization. The Gigabit Ethernet IPP ASIC is now available to OEMs for use in TOE-ready or TOE-enabled blade servers, IP storage switches, NAS appliances and iSCSI storage subsystems. The IPP ASIC uses Alacritech's SLIC Technology, which enables it to perform the CPU-intensive data movement, while host software handles TCP/IP connection management and errors. [See today's announcement: Alacritech Announces General Availability of its Patented TCP Offload and iSCSI ASIC]
Availability
Alacritech's new TOE-ready Gigabit Ethernet server adapters, the 1000x1 Copper Gigabit Adapter and the 1000x1F Fiber Gigabit Adapter, are available now starting at $375 U.S. list price. Alacritech's new SLICware iSCSI Acceleration software is available for $249 U.S. list price. The SLICware Network Acceleration software is available for $649 U.S. list price. The Alacritech 1000x1 IPP ASIC is also available for $80 for volume purchases. Alacritech's entire product family is Microsoft Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL) qualified, and supports Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 and Linux. The SLICware Toolkit is available for other environments.
Alacritech's new products are available now to OEMs. The company will release the products to its channel partners and end users in the first quarter of 2003.
About Alacritech, Inc.
Alacritech, Inc. was founded by Larry Boucher, creator of the SCSI interface, to deliver upon his vision of eliminating the server bottleneck. Today, Alacritech 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, the iSCSI Consortium 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. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
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