QLogic to Demonstrate End-to-End Support for NPIV and Virtual Fabrics at Storage Networking World

1 January 1970

Storage Networking World -- QLogic Corp. (Nasdaq:QLGC), the leader in Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), stackable switches and blade server switches today announced that it will demonstrate end-to-end support of its HBA virtualization technologies at the Fall Storage Networking World show in Orlando, Florida on October 31. The QLogic-organized demonstration, located in the Cisco Systems Technology Showcase area, consists of a real world configuration of multiple Cisco MDS 9216 Fibre Channel switches, QLogic SANblade(r) 2400 Series Fibre Channel HBAs and Veritas Cluster Server from Symantec, all supporting N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) and Virtual Fabric technology in a standard Linux environment.

"QLogic was the first to market with HBA support for virtual SAN (VSAN) technology, now a T11 standard used to deploy Virtual Fabrics," said Frank Berry, vice president of marketing, QLogic Corp. "Now we've combined Virtual Fabric technology with NPIV to create a more secure, manageable, and higher performance environment for virtual machines."

NPIV, supported by the Fibre Channel switch and HBA, allows a single HBA port to function as multiple logical ports, each with its own identity and world wide port name (WWPN). Similarly, both the Fibre Channel switch and HBA work in conjunction to offer Virtual Fabric technology, which provides the ability to create completely isolated network groups. Each network group has its own set of fabric services (i.e. name server, zone server, login server). Software applications and operating systems can leverage NPIV and Virtual Fabric technology by supporting the QLogic HBA virtualization application programming interface (API) to exchange NPIV and Virtual Fabric parameters.

"Cisco pioneered VSAN technology to enable virtual fabrics, which benefit customers through improved resource allocation and provisioning, partitioning of SANs for specific applications or departments, sharing of disaster recovery facilities, and as a valuable tool for SAN migration," said Rajeev Bhardwaj, director of product management, Data Center Business Unit at Cisco. "QLogic support for NPIV and VSANs at the HBA level will help customers to easily deploy end-to-end virtual fabrics."

"Veritas Cluster Server is the leading open systems clustering product used by the Global 2000 for high availability and disaster recovery for their mission-critical applications," said Poulomi Damany, director of product management at Symantec Corp. "VCS takes advantage of the logical HBA ports and VSAN tagging capability provided by the QLogic HBA virtualization API to enable faster failover and improved security of access to SAN storage for these mission-critical applications protected by VCS."

The demonstration showcases how end user applications such as databases can leverage virtualization technologies delivered by Fibre Channel HBAs and switches. Logical ports can easily be created and grouped into secure and isolated Virtual Fabrics. Once the logical ports are created via NPIV and secured via Virtual Fabric technology, the software application attaches each database to a specific WWPN and Virtual Fabric ID, essentially creating an end-to-end secured path to a designated disk. If a network or application failure occurs, the database can easily be migrated to a new server with the original WWPN and Virtual Fabric ID preserved. Thus, storage administrators do not have to change any zoning or LUN masking parameters already configured in the SAN, while maintaining a secure, flexible, and highly available solution.

About QLogic

QLogic is a leading supplier of high performance storage networking solutions including Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), blade server embedded Fibre Channel switches, Fibre Channel stackable switches, iSCSI HBAs, iSCSI routers and storage services platforms for enabling advanced storage management applications. The company is also a leading supplier of server networking products including InfiniBand host channel adapters that accelerate cluster performance. QLogic products are delivered to small-to-medium businesses and large enterprises around the world via its channel partner community. QLogic products are also powering solutions from leading companies like Cisco, Dell, EMC, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance and Sun Microsystems. QLogic is a member of the S&P 500 Index. For more information go to www.qlogic.com.

Note: All QLogic-issued press releases appear on the Company's website (www.qlogic.com). Any announcement that does not appear on the QLogic website has not been issued by QLogic.

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This press release contains statements relating to future results of the Company (including certain beliefs and projections regarding business trends) that are "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or implied in the forward-looking statements. The Company advises readers that these potential risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: potential fluctuations in operating results; gross margins that may vary over time; revenues may be affected by changes in IT spending levels; the stock price of the Company may be volatile; the Company's dependence on the storage area network market; the ability to maintain and gain market or industry acceptance of the Company's products; the Company's dependence on a limited number of customers; seasonal fluctuations and uneven sales patterns in orders from customers; the Company's ability to compete effectively with other companies; declining average unit sales prices of comparable products; a reduction in sales efforts by current distributors; dependence on sole source and limited source suppliers; the Company's dependence on relationships with certain silicon chip suppliers; the complexity of the Company's products; sales fluctuations arising from customer transitions to new products; the uncertainty associated with SOX 404 compliance; environmental compliance costs; terrorist activities and resulting military actions; international economic, regulatory, political and other risks; uncertain benefits from strategic business combinations; the ability to attract and retain key personnel; recognition of compensation expense related to employee stock options and the Company's employee stock purchase plan; the decreased effectiveness of equity compensation; difficulties in implementing smaller geometry process technologies; the ability to protect proprietary rights; the ability to satisfactorily resolve any infringement claims; reliance on third party licenses; the use of "open source" software in our products; changes in our tax provisions or adverse outcomes resulting from examination of our income tax returns; computer viruses and other tampering with the Company's computer systems; and facilities of the Company and its suppliers and customers are located in areas subject to natural disasters.

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CONTACT: QLogic Corporation

Editor's Contact

Frank Berry

(949) 389-6499

frank.berry@qlogic.com

Investor's Contact

Tony Massetti

(949) 389-7533

tony.massetti@qlogic.com

Source: primezone

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