NETWORKS

QLogic Corp., the company that powers storage area networks (SANs), today announced its Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) are being used to connect a massive storage system to a large-scale supercomputing cluster that will drive advanced research at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The cluster will provide computing power to support researchers across the U.S. involved with major scientific and engineering projects. These range from the study of the evolution, size and structure of the universe to the intricacy of the human genome. When completed, the system promises to rank among the world's most powerful supercomputing systems. The cluster, scheduled to be operational this year, will feature 106 QLogic SANblade QLA234x Fibre Channel HBAs, which will be used to directly attach Dell PowerEdge servers to DataDirect Fibre Channel storage controllers. QLogic SANblade HBAs will support more than 120 terabytes of storage. The SANblade QLA234x line of HBAs offers an extensive checklist of features and benefits that is unmatched in the industry, including performance of up to 80,000 input/output operations per second (IOPs) and more than 800MB of throughput per second. The SANblade QLA234x Series features a unique "bridgeless" dual channel HBA, eliminating the severe performance degradation of PCI-X bridges used in competitive HBAs. Additionally, the SANblade QLA234x Series offers native support for all major operating systems including Microsoft(r) Windows Server 2003, Windows NT(r), Windows 2000, Novell(r) NetWare, Red Hat(r) Linux(r) and SuSE Linux. "When deployed, the cluster's performance will establish an important milestone in the use of commercially available products to create supercomputers," said Dan Reed, director of NCSA. "By using a standards-based architecture and off-the-shelf IT components, we anticipate a lower total cost of ownership and improved ease of maintenance." "More than 45 million QLogic products have been delivered to small, medium and large enterprises around the world, delivering fast, reliable storage connectivity that translates into greater operational productivity," said Frank Berry, vice president of marketing for QLogic Corporation. "Now in NCSA's new cutting-edge supercomputing cluster, QLogic technology will help to further important scientific pursuits."