COSTA MESA, Calif., Sept. 16, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- Emulex Corporation (NYSE:ELX), the world's leading supplier of storage networking host bus adapters (HBAs), announced today the latest addition to its LightPulse 2Gb/s LP10000 family of Fibre Channel host bus adapters for the emerging PCI Express(1) I/O interface. The Emulex LP10000Ex is designed for use with servers based on the PCI Express architecture, and is software compatible with existing PCI and PCI-X systems, enabling OEMs and end users to migrate seamlessly to this new scalable, high performance system architecture. Emulex's product release will coincide with general availability of PCI Express-enabled servers in early 2004.
"This new PCI Express HBA will provide the same robust feature set and performance that our customers have come to expect from Emulex connectivity solutions, and takes advantage of our expertise in I/O solutions for both the enterprise and mid-range markets," said Mike Smith, executive vice president of Worldwide Marketing at Emulex. "Additionally, Emulex's driver compatibility, firmware upgradeability, and management technology such as HBAnyware provide a uniquely compelling set of benefits for customers looking to deploy next generation PCI Express solutions."
"PCI Express is designed to provide a robust alternative to existing bus architectures, and our work with Emulex aimed at delivery of next generation connectivity solutions is expected to help ensure HBA availability when PCI Express launches next year," said Jim Pappas, director of Initiative Marketing for Intel's Enterprise Platform Group.
The Emulex LP10000Ex PCI Express HBA is based on Emulex's latest generation Thor ASIC, which has delivers measured performance in excess of 100,000 I/Os per second and 790 MB/s throughput across two ports. The LP10000Ex will leverage Emulex's recently introduced centralized HBA management suite, HBAnyware(tm), which enables discovery and complete management of HBAs within the SAN, reducing total cost of ownership and planned downtime while enabling sophisticated management capabilities such as remote firmware upgrades from a single console anywhere in a SAN. HBAnyware is driver-based technology that leverages Emulex's unique Service Level Interface (SLI), enabling full compatibility across the installed base of more than 1,000,000 HBAs and the new LP10000Ex.
Emulex HBAs are supported by a wide range of operating system drivers, including Windows, Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, and Netware, as well as a variety of OEM-developed operating system drivers, including FICON and AIX. Emulex drivers support an open standards-based management application programming interface (API), which allows OEM customers and partners to seamlessly integrate support for Emulex's HBAs, enabling the development and implementation of advanced storage area network management services.
About PCI Express
The PCI Express architecture is an open specification designed to address the wide range of current and future system interconnect requirements of multiple market segments in the computing and communications industries. It also defines a flexible, scalable, high-speed, serial, point-to-point, hot pluggable/hot swappable interconnect that is software-compatible with PCI. In 2001, Emulex was selected as a key developer within the Arapahoe Working Group -- a group of companies, including IBM, Intel and Microsoft, committed to providing the foundation for developing and deploying PCI Express solutions. Emulex was selected to participate in the development group based on its expertise and market leadership in the storage networking market.
About the Emulex Family of HBAs
The Emulex LP10000 family of single- and dual-channel HBAs, including the PCI Express HBAs, provide the robust Fibre Channel SAN connectivity designed to meet the needs of enterprise-class and mid-range customers. Utilizing Emulex's internally designed Thor controller, the Emulex LP10000 product family features an advanced memory architecture, which provides high speed hardware context switching and data buffering. In addition, the Emulex Thor ASIC features integrated microprocessor, serializer/deserializer (SERDES) and protocol technologies, further reducing the HBA's complexity.
The Emulex architecture incorporates firmware upgradeability and driver compatibility, eliminating the need for forklift upgrades, while allowing customers to expand and increase performance by adding the LP10000 family of HBAs. The LP10000 product family provides unmatched scalability for enterprise environments, and Emulex's OEM customers and partners can create customized drivers and protocol support via licensing of Emulex's Service Level Interface.
About Emulex
Emulex Corporation, which was named one of Forbes Magazine's 25 Fastest Growing Technology Companies in 2002, is the world's largest supplier and developer of storage networking host bus adapters. The American Electronics Association also recently named Emulex "Outstanding Public Company" for 2002.
The Emulex product families are based on internally developed ASIC, firmware and software technologies spanning both Fibre Channel and IP networking protocols, 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 Dell, EMC, Fujitsu Siemens, Groupe Bull, HP, Hitachi Data Systems, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance, StorageTek and Unisys. In addition, Emulex includes industry leaders Brocade, Computer Associates, Intel, McDATA, Microsoft and VERITAS among its strategic allies.
Via a joint development agreement, Emulex and Intel are pioneering the industry's first storage processors for Serial ATA, Serial Attached SCSI and Fibre Channel interfaces within a single architecture. Emulex markets to OEMs and end users through its own worldwide selling organization, as well as its two-tier distribution partners, including ACAL, Avnet, Bell Microproducts, Info-X, Netmarks, 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.
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"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. The company wishes to caution readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include the rapidly changing nature of technology, evolving industry standards and frequent introductions of new products and enhancements by competitors; fluctuation in the growth of Fibre Channel and IP markets; changes in economic conditions or changes in end-user demand for technology solutions; fluctuations or delays in customer orders; the highly competitive nature of the markets for Emulex's products; Emulex's ability to gain market acceptance for its products; the company's ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; the company's reliance on third-party suppliers. These and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are also discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q.