San Jose, Calif. — March 1, 2004— Alacritech®, Inc., the innovator of data acceleration solutions that enable the highest performance and efficiency in networked systems, today announced its new Alacritech SES1001 iSCSI Accelerator has achieved interoperability certification with leading storage vendors. Alacritech has tested and qualified several solution providers to ensure compatibility with its top performing iSCSI HBA, the Microsoft® iSCSI Software Initiator and the Windows® platform. Alacritech continually works with the industry’s leading vendors to provide cost-effective, interoperable iSCSI solutions with unsurpassed performance to further drive customer confidence in implementing iSCSI SANs.

“Alacritech’s SES1001 line of iSCSI HBAs utilizing the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator provides yet another high performance, interoperable solution for iSCSI SANs based on our heritage of delivering standards-compliant offload and acceleration technology,” said Paul Falworth, director of Product Marketing, Alacritech, Inc. “The Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator is the standard for the Windows platform, and utilizing it with our new HBA provides customers with storage networking products that are familiar, easy to implement, scalable and cost-effective.”

Alacritech’s new SES1001 iSCSI Accelerator is the industry’s top performing iSCSI HBA and is the only HBA to accelerate the full Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator. Based on Alacritech’s patented SLIC Technology® Data Path Offload (DPO) architecture, it enables wire-speed performance and quadruple the transaction rate over all other ASIC-based iSCSI HBAs. The Alacritech SES1001 iSCSI Accelerator family joins other Alacritech Accelerators approved for use with the Windows operating system through Microsoft’s Designed for Windows® Logo Program.

Broad Industry Compatibility
Alacritech’s support of the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator provides Alacritech customers access to a growing number of proven iSCSI storage subsystems qualified for use with the Microsoft Windows operating system under the Microsoft Designed for Windows Logo Program. Additionally, the Alacritech iSCSI Accelerator has achieved interoperability certification with products from leading storage solution providers including Cisco® Systems Inc., EqualLogic® Inc., FalconStor Software, Inc., Intransa, McDATA® Corp., and SANRAD.

Cisco
“Cisco’s MDS SAN switches were the first to integrate iSCSI connectivity into a highly reliable and scalable platform through the IP Storage Services Module. Alacritech shares our vision of innovation by providing customers with highly functional solutions that enable them to easily consolidate their DAS or expand existing SANs into an IP-enabled environment,” said Bill Erdman, director of Technology Alliances, Cisco Systems, Inc. “The proven interoperability between the Cisco IP Storage Services Module and Alacritech’s iSCSI HBA allows us to deliver mutually qualified SAN expansion solutions to our customers.”

EqualLogic
“By ensuring interoperability with Alacritech, one of the leading providers of TOE technology, we’re providing our customers with powerful IP-based storage management and efficient data delivery while reducing the cost and complexity of storage administration,” said John Joseph, vice president of Marketing, EqualLogic Inc. “Customers implementing an EqualLogic PeerStorage array, Alacritech iSCSI Accelerators and Microsoft’s iSCSI Software Initiator will achieve optimum performance with a significantly lower cost of ownership for their storage networks.”

FalconStor
“FalconStor and Alacritech share the vision of ensuring high availability and resiliency in customer networks that require continuous backup and rapid data recovery,” said ReiJane Huai, chairman and CEO, FalconStor Software, Inc. “SAN customers utilizing FalconStor’s IPStor iSCSI Appliance and Alacritech’s new high performance, low-cost iSCSI HBA will benefit from a proven solution that offers considerably greater performance and value for their iSCSI storage environments.”

Intransa
“Intransa and Alacritech share a commitment to deliver standards-based IP storage solutions that are compatible with a broad range of SAN products, applications and architectures,” said Peter Wang, Chief Technology Officer and founder of Intransa. “Intransa’s IP5000 Storage System and Alacritech’s new high performance iSCSI Accelerator utilizing the Microsoft iSCSI Software Initiator provide our joint customers with a pre-qualified storage management solution that ensures highly efficient storage utilization and centralized backups for their Windows environments.”

McDATA
“As the need for greater storage consolidation and data protection continues to grow, McDATA is committed to providing highly reliable solutions by working with best-of-breed solution providers such as Alacritech,” said Peter Dougherty, vice president of Switch Platforms, McDATA. “Solutions using McDATA’s SAN Internetworking switches and Alacritech’s iSCSI HBAs provide unprecedented wire-speed performance and the scalability required for large enterprise applications, while also being cost-effective for SME applications. The qualification included Microsoft’s native iSCSI drivers, making this solution an ideal fit for Windows environments.”

SANRAD
“SANRAD and Alacritech have deployed a number of iSCSI SANs at small and medium size enterprises as a cost-effective alternative to more complex Fibre Channel SANs for their Microsoft server environments,” said Zophar Sante, vice president of Market Development, SANRAD. “The combination of SANRAD’s V-Switch and Alacritech’s new iSCSI HBA brings the benefits of storage networking and centralized storage administration to these enterprises in an affordable manner.”

About Alacritech Acceleration Technology
As systems and servers move increasing amounts of network data, new solutions are needed to solve both efficiency and throughput challenges. Alacritech Accelerators include Gigabit Ethernet and Fast Ethernet TNIC products and iSCSI HBA products based on SLIC Technology®, Alacritech’s patented Data Path Offload (DPO) architecture. Alacritech’s SLIC Technology supplements the TCP software control plane with distributed hardware data planes to maximize data movement through Ethernet-based networks. This revolutionary architecture is designed to maximize server and storage performance and efficiency. All Alacritech products offer industry-standard failover and link aggregation.

About Alacritech, Inc.
Alacritech, Inc. is the world’s leading supplier of TCP Offload Engine (TOE) solutions that enable the highest performance and efficiency in networked systems. Alacritech’s complete line of Accelerators is based on the company’s patented SLIC Technology to optimize data delivery in servers, network-attached storage and iSCSI storage devices. SLIC Technology, the basis of industry-accepted TOE solutions, ships in storage and server products worldwide. 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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