San Jose, Calif. — June 16, 2003 — Alacritech®, Inc., the innovator of data acceleration solutions that enable the highest performance and efficiency in networked systems, today announced its new TCP/IP Offload Engine (TOE) Analyzer monitoring software. TOE Network Interface Cards (TNICs) such as the Alacritech Accelerator dramatically improve system performance and efficiency in systems with modest to large application network I/O request sizes. Alacritech’s TOE Analyzer is the first monitoring program that tests and depicts peak traffic performance results while a system is generating network load in its typical operating environment. By providing a snapshot of the traffic profile of network usage prior to TOE deployment, Alacritech’s TOE Analyzer enables users to easily evaluate how TOE technology will increase the efficiency and performance of servers and applications.

“As customers work to improve overall IT operational efficiency in their networked systems, we’re providing the tools to help them understand the role and value of TCP acceleration,” said Larry Boucher, president and CEO, Alacritech, Inc. “Our new TOE Analyzer enables anyone to pre-determine exactly where Alacritech TCP Accelerators will maximize ROI.”

The benefits a server receives with TCP offload are proportional to the size of each TCP I/O operation, and the amount of network traffic generated by the server. Alacritech’s TOE Analyzer instruments the Microsoft Windows operating system to measure TCP I/O data sizes being passed through all network adapters. TOE Analyzer then uses this information along with standard Windows Performance Monitor data for network throughput and CPU usage to determine how effective a TNIC will be for the monitored system.

“Users understand TCP/IP offload provides benefits, but they are still looking for guidance on where to use the technology,” said Michael Fisch, director of storage and networking, The Clipper Group. “Alacritech’s TOE Analyzer arms users of all networked systems with a simple program that immediately demonstrates the efficiency gains TOEs can provide to their servers.”

“With TOE technology becoming increasingly popular on networked servers, Alacritech’s TOE Analyzer allows customers to quickly determine which systems will receive the greatest benefit from Alacritech’s accelerators,” said Mark Nagaitis, director of marketing, HP Infrastructure and NAS Division.

Alacritech Accelerator Benefits
The Alacritech TNIC provides significant benefits in today’s networking environments as applications are moving bigger files and data objects. With large application requests being made to TCP/IP, legacy TCP/IP software must segment these TCP I/O requests into transactions that match the Ethernet payload size. This results in one application I/O causing many, and frequently hundreds, of network transactions on the host. TCP offload maintains the relationship between application I/Os and network transactions on a one-to-one basis. With the Alacritech Accelerator and other future TNIC products, each network transaction is handled by dedicated hardware as a single host transaction, drastically reducing host overhead and enabling efficient data delivery.

Availability
Alacritech’s new TOE Analyzer monitoring software is supported on Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. The Alacritech TOE Analyzer is available free of charge.

About Alacritech, Inc.
Alacritech, Inc., led by industry visionary Larry Boucher, was founded to provide data acceleration solutions that enable the highest performance and efficiency in networked systems. Today, Alacritech is the first and only supplier of TCP Offload Engine (TOE) Network Interface Card (TNIC) solutions. Alacritech's complete line of high-performance server and storage accelerators is based on the company's patented SLIC (Session Layer Interface Control) Technology to optimize data delivery in servers, network-attached storage and iSCSI storage devices. SLIC Technology, the first fully compatible and scalable TOE technology, is being delivered in the industry's leading storage and server products. Alacritech is a privately held company based in San Jose, California. For more information about Alacritech and its products, please visit the company's Web site at www.alacritech.com.

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