NETWORKS

Continuing to demonstrate widespread acceptance of its single-chip Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) portfolio, QLogic today announced that its 8100 Series converged network adapters (CNAs) have been named the 2009 Connectivity Product of the Year by StorAge Magazine at the publication's annual StorAge Awards, or "Storries," in the U.K. Now in its sixth year, the "Storries" recognize outstanding products, services and people in the industry as nominated and voted on by the magazine's readers. Winners of this year's awards will be showcased in the July/August issue of StorAge Magazine.

Based on QLogic's advanced Network Plus Architecture, the 8100 Series is designed for next-generation, virtualized and unified data centers with powerful multi-processor, multi-core servers. Available in multiple form factors, including standard and mezzanine cards, the 8100 Series offers full certification for nearly every operating system, including Windows, Linux, AIX and HP-UX, and virtualization platforms, such as VMware ESX Server, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer, as well as any hardware platform from PowerPC to Nehalem. QLogic 8100 Series CNAs are optimized for both data and storage networking virtualization with superior 10Gb Enhanced Ethernet performance to handle massive quantities of virtual machines.

"This award is particularly significant because it comes directly from the readers of StorAge Magazine," said Scott Genereux, senior vice president, Worldwide Sales & Marketing, QLogic. "They see the tremendous problem-solving capabilities of FCoE and specifically the 8100 Series adapters and have validated our strategy to deliver the highest performing FCoE connectivity solutions, which are making it easier for businesses to manage their storage and data on a single, unified network."

"In less than four months QLogic has managed to roll out the industry's first single-chip FCoE adapter, capture multiple tier-one OEM design wins, and now the 8100 Series has been recognized as 'Connectivity Product of the Year' by one of the premier storage publications in the UK," said Bob Laliberte, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "Combined with the launch of a channel program that is tailored to address emerging FCoE opportunities, this news highlights how much momentum QLogic is gaining in the rapidly emerging FCoE market."

Optimized for blade servers and high-density storage systems, the QLogic 8100 Series CNAs support simultaneous storage and data networking traffic at full 10GbE line speeds, consume only one third the power of existing CNA chip sets and are the only CNAs on the market to completely eliminate the need for a heat sink. Leveraging the established architecture of the market-leading QLogic 2500 Series Fibre Channel adapters, it's also the first single-chip CNA with an integrated, full FCoE offload engine, enabling faster application performance while saving precious CPU resources, which translates to higher degrees of server virtualization in the data center.

More information on the QLogic 8100 Series is available at: http://www.qlogic.com/Products/Datnetworking_products_landingpage.aspx

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