|
COSTA MESA, Calif., April 18, 2002 -Emulex Corporation
(NASDAQ: EMLX), the world’s leading supplier of storage
networking host bus adapters (HBAs), announced today its new
series of 2Gbit/s native 133 MHz PCI-X Fibre Channel host
bus adapters, the Emulex LightPulse LP9802 and LP982. The
Emulex LP9802 is the latest in Emulex’s high-end product
line, while the LP982 offers features ideal for the mid-range
storage area network (SAN) market. Delivering 30 percent more
I/O processing power than the previous generation, the LP9802
and LP982 HBAs are capable of sustaining more than 390MBytes/s
on a single 2Gbit/s link, making Emulex’s PCI-X HBAs
the highest performance Fibre Channel HBAs available for the
enterprise and mid-range market segments. Furthermore, the
Emulex PCI-X HBAs are also backwards compatible with existing
1Gbit/s and 2Gbit/s Fibre Channel PCI installations
"With storage area networks pushing traffic at gigabit
speeds, traditional PCI bus speeds are, in many cases, considered
a bottleneck," said Eric Sheppard, senior analyst at
IDC. "Emulex’s PCI-X HBAs will not only help to
alleviate such bottlenecks, but backwards compatibility means
that these benefits can be realized within current SAN installations."
The Emulex LP9802 and LP982 feature Emulex’s new Pegasus
ASIC – a highly integrated, internally developed fifth
generation Fibre Channel controller. The Emulex PCI-X HBAs
utilize Emulex’s unique product architecture, which delivers
scalability and high performance, while continuing Emulex’s
long tradition of ensuring 100 percent backwards compatibility,
simplified management and upgradeability. The Emulex LP9802
and LP982 also offer an open standards-based management application
programming interface (API), which enables customers to seamlessly
integrate support for Emulex’s driver, as well as develop
and implement advanced storage area network (SAN) management
services using Emulex HBAs.
"Emulex is working closely with its leading OEM customers
and partners to ensure the highest levels of interoperability
and qualification testing with all available PCI-X server
platforms," said Mike Smith, executive vice president
of Worldwide Marketing at Emulex. "Our unique LightPulse
product architecture enables our customers to transparently
migrate to next generation products, which will help to accelerate
the adoption of the emerging PCI-X platforms."
The Emulex family of HBAs uniquely facilitates seamless migration
to PCI-X. The Emulex LP9802 and LP982 preserve driver compatibility
with Emulex’s entire installed base of HBAs, now totaling
more than 600,000, including the first-generation LP6000,
LP7000, LP8000 and the 2Gbit/s LP9002L. In addition, the LP9802
and LP982 utilize Emulex’s firmware-based architecture,
enabling firmware upgradeability, which protects customer
investments in SAN connectivity.
About the Emulex LP9802/LP982
The Emulex LP9802 and LP982 provide the robust Fibre Channel
SAN connectivity designed to meet the needs of enterprise-class
and mid-range customers. Utilizing Emulex’s internally
designed Pegasus ASIC, the Emulex LP9802 and LP982 feature
an advanced memory architecture, which provides high speed
hardware context switching and data buffering using a single,
high bandwidth memory device that dramatically reduces memory
chip count and solution footprint. In addition, the Emulex
Pegasus ASIC features an integrated serializer/deserializer
(SERDES), further reducing the HBA’s complexity. The
Emulex LP9802/LP982 features include:
- 133 MHz PCI-X system interface (fully backwards compatible
with PCI)
- High performance direct memory access (DMA) engines
optimize PCI-X performance
- Full duplex 2Gbit/s Fibre Channel (fully backwards compatible
with 1Gbit/s SANs)
- Full fabric support
- On-board hardware context cache for superior fabric
performance
- Large data buffer enabling sustained high bandwidth
over long distances
- Support for concurrent use of multiple protocols (SCSI
and IP)
- End-to-end parity protection for high data integrity
The LP9802 provides unmatched scalability for enterprise
environments, and is supported by a wide range of operating
system drivers, including Windows, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Linux
and NetWare. In addition, EmulexĂs OEM customers and partners
can create customized drivers and protocol support via licensing
of EmulexĂs Service Level Interface (SLI). The Emulex LP982
offers the same high performance and leadership features as
the LP9802, and includes support for operating environments
popular in mid-range environments, including Windows, Linux
and NetWare.
About PCI-X
PCI-X is a new system bus architecture found in emerging
multi-processor based servers that provides increased I/O
bandwidth, making it ideal for Fibre Channel SAN applications.
With broad industry support, PCI-X technology is designed
to offer a high performance extension to the existing PCI
bus architecture, while maintaining backwards compatibility
with legacy PCI servers. PCI-X operates at a maximum bus speed
of 133 MHz, providing up to 1GByte/s of bandwidth for system
I/O.
The Emulex Family of Host Bus Adapters
The Emulex family of HBAs offers high performance, standards-based
connectivity solutions for both Fibre Channel and Internet
protocol (IP) storage networking environments. Emulex host
bus adapters provide a unique combination of features required
for mission-critical enterprise environments that deliver
reliability, high bandwidth, server CPU offload, low latency
and scalable connectivity. For information about how Emulex
HBAs increase SAN productivity and efficiency, please visit
the Emulex website and download the IDC whitepaper titled,
Measuring the HBA’s Role in SAN Management.
The Emulex LightPulse family of Fibre Channel HBAs offers
full fabric support, high data integrity, full-duplex operation,
data buffering for up to 100km of cabling and support for
all Fibre Channel topologies. The Emulex LightPulse family
of Fibre Channel products includes the 2Gbit/s PCI-X LP9802
and LP982 HBAs, the 2Gbit/s LP9002L and LP952L PCI HBAs, the
2Gbit/s LP9002C CompactPCI HBA, the 2Gbit/s LP9002S SBus-based
HBA and the market-leading LP8000.
The Emulex family of IP-based storage networking host bus
adapters includes the recently announced GN9000/SI iSCSI host
bus adapter and the GN9000/VI VI/IP host bus adapter. The
Emulex GN9000/SI is designed to provide the high performance
iSCSI connectivity over gigabit Ethernet for PCI-based systems.
The Emulex GN9000/VI VI/IP HBA enables network attached storage
(NAS) appliances and hosts to exchange file system data over
IP networks, while gaining the high throughput, low latency
and reduced CPU overhead benefits of the virtual interface
(VI) architecture. For more information on the Emulex product
families, please visit www.emulex.com.
About Emulex
Emulex Corporation (NASDAQ: EMLX) is a leading supplier and
developer of storage networking host bus adapters based on
both Fibre Channel and IP networking technologies. The Emulex
product families are based on internally developed ASIC, firmware
and software technologies, and offer customers high performance,
scalability, flexibility and reduced total cost of ownership.
The company’s products have been selected by the world’s
leading server and storage providers, including Compaq, Dell,
EMC, Fujitsu-Siemens, Groupe Bull, Hewlett-Packard Company,
Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance and Unisys.
In addition, Emulex includes industry leaders Brocade, INRANGE,
Intel, Legato, McDATA, Microsoft and Veritas among its strategic
partners.
Emulex markets to OEMs and end users through its own worldwide
selling organization, as well as its two-tier distribution
partners, including ACAL, Arrow, Avnet, Bell Microproducts,
Info-X, Tech Data, TidalWire and Tokyo Electron. Corporate
headquarters are located in Costa Mesa, California. News releases
and other information about Emulex Corporation are available
at www.emulex.com.
EMULEX We network storage
|