EARTH SCIENCES

MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- DataDirect Networks, a provider of the world's highest performance storage networking appliances, and Sistina Software will be demonstrating a low-cost, scalable storage networking solution that combines Sistina's Global File System (GFS) with DataDirect Networks Silicon Storage Appliance cluster technology at BioITWorld Conference and Expo March 13th - 14th. The combined technologies provide a storage networking and management system ideally suited for life science computing environments. Sistina's GFS adds enhanced I/O capabilities to Beowulf clusters equipped with DataDirect Networks' storage appliance technology, resulting in increased efficiency and the elimination of bottlenecks associated with traditional NFS servers. During benchmark testing that combined Sistina's GFS and DataDirect Network's storage, engineers observed near linear scaling for shared-reader and non-shared writer applications (multiple sources not writing to the same file simultaneously). DataDirect Networks has created highly scalable, simple-to-deploy and easy-to-manage Silicon Storage Appliances to accelerate application performance, simplify storage management, and to lower operating costs. DataDirect's Silicon Storage Appliance technology allows life science professionals to accelerate their applications, providing data at least three times faster than existing Storage Area Networking (SAN) solutions and ten times faster than Network Attached Storage (NAS) technology. The acceleration of data to applications and users allows DataDirect Networks' customers to consolidate and share their storage. Silicon Storage Appliances also provides the ability to manage up to 100 Terabytes with a single IT administrator. "Combining DataDirect Network's storage technology and Sistina's Global File System results in high performance clusters with efficient and robust data management systems," said Mike Declerck, Vice President of Engineering for Sistina. "For those working in fields as such as genomics, the ability to store and access data is fueling rapid advances. This system provides that critical functionality." "Today storing, managing and accessing data is a very serious challenge for most scientific, research and government facilities around the world." Robert Woolery, vice president of strategic development, DataDirect Networks, said. "With DataDirect Networks' Silicon Storage Appliance and Sistina's Global File System, network storage consolidation and sharing capability is enabled - providing the highest levels of research collaboration, speeding time-to-market and significantly increasing return on investment for life science environments. In addition, partnerships with industry-leading companies, such as Sistina, enable us to bring more robust and broader storage network management capabilities and solutions to our customers." For more information visit www.datadirectnet.com