Eden Prairie, MN - Feb. 25, 2003 -I-TECH, a technology leader in high-speed data storage testing solutions, announced today that it has been awarded a patent for the common clock signal and multi-channel status technology used with the Satellite® Fibre Channel Analyzers. Satellite is used for testing Storage Area Network (SAN) systems and components.

“This patent recognizes two of the innovations that I-TECH has put into Satellite to accommodate the unique requirements of SAN analysis,” said I-TECH CEO Steven Bucher.

A technique for driving more than two analyzer channels with a common clock signal is one of the innovations recognized by this patent. This results in time-synchronized traces, ensuring that time stamps are accurate relative to each other across all channels. “As SAN analysis trends toward an increased number of channels, the ability to correlate time stamps across all channels is essential,” continued Bucher.

Another innovation recognized by this patent is the ability of Satellite channels to collectively decide on an action, such as triggering. Collective participation can be as simple as all channels triggering when one channel detects a trigger condition or as complex as notifying other channels of the occurrence of an intermediate event that may lead to a subsequent trigger decision by another channel. “Anomalous conditions in a SAN are often difficult to detect because they occur in multiple and unpredictable places. Satellite solves this problem by allowing each of the channels to participate in a collective trigger decision,” explained Bucher.

Patent #6,507,923, entitled “Integrated Multi-Channel Fibre Channel Analyzer” was issued on Jan. 14, 2003. I-TECH has additional patents pending on features of its breakthrough technology. The company’s current generation of protocol analyzer product offerings are focused on the development interoperability test and analysis markets.

About I-TECH
I-TECH Corp. is a world leader in test solutions for critical storage and network applications. I-TECH is committed to helping OEMs, partners, service providers, and end users in ensuring, building, and maintaining a solid infrastructure for data services. Founded in 1988, I-TECH enables its customers to improve the performance of their products by providing leading-edge Fibre Channel and SCSI test systems. I-TECH’s products offer the ideal environment for manufacturers, integrators, and end users. Learn more about I-TECH at
www.i-tech.com by calling (952) 941-5905.