STORAGE

LOS ANGELES, CA -- On the evening of February 8, 2002, nearly 3.5 billion people around the world watched in astonishment as a NASA/Space Imaging Zoom took viewers from outer space directly into the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake Olympic Winter Games. And the first surprising glimpse was powered, in part, by storage networking appliances, called Silicon Storage Appliances, from Los Angeles-based DataDirect Networks. DataDirect Networks has four Silicon Storage Appliances deployed at the NASA -Goddard Space Flight Center to distribute and accelerate satellite imaging and data analysis information from MODIS, one of the instruments used to create the astonishing Space Imaging Zoom into the opening ceremonies. And this demonstration of spectacular imaging was the first exposure that many have had to the power and benefits storage networking can provide. As a storage networking company that creates highly scalable, simple to deploy and easy-to-manage solutions for business, broadcasting and government, DataDirect has always excelled in the demanding imaging, simulation and visualization environments required by governmental agencies - and the content-rich environments surrounding TV broadcasting. "Storage Area Networks based upon Silicon Storage Appliances enable best of breed, real-time solutions that can entertain, educate and enrich people around the world," Alex Bouzari, chief executive officer, DataDirect Networks, said. "The work done by NASA - Goddard is truly spectacular, and it illustrates that using Silicon Storage Appliances as the intelligent infrastructure for networks handling content-rich information brings compelling benefits to a wide range of applications, from high performance computing to broadcasting facilities, and everything in between." The development of NASA's Olympic Space Imaging Zoom (http://olympics.gsfc.nasa.gov/olympiczoom.mpeg) has roots in important scientific research. In the path from the vacuum of outer space to the billions of people around the world, the computer science expertise necessary to assemble the scene demands powerful hardware, world-class software, and in NASA's words, lots of know-how. Images like this illustrate the power of remote sensing, the ability of scientists to gain perspective on their subject and make measurements from a distance. The story begins in space. Orbiting 438 miles above the earth is Terra, a $1.3 billion school bus-size satellite carrying a detection instrument called MODIS, the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectoradiometer. Scanning the earth, MODIS takes the pulse of the planet, watching atmosphere, oceanic and terrestrial changes, and relays this information to ground stations in the United States. Data from these sweeps are transmitted down to NASA Goddard for processing and analysis. Once on the ground, the information is then moved from disk and tape into a mixed data center environment comprised of Linux, SGI Origin and Sun servers, DataDirect Silicon Storage Appliances and storage. Together, the four Silicon Storage Appliances manage 1.5 TB of data moving through the network and out to servers and workgroups each day, with an overall storage environment of almost 200 Terabytes of data. The Imaging Zoom was done by the NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Members of the NASA team on-site in Utah reported hearing cheers going through the opening ceremony crowd as attendees realized that the zoom was going right to the stadium. Accelerating Real-Time Applications, Enabling Results with Appliances DataDirect Networks has created highly scalable, simple-to-deploy and easy-to-manage Silicon Storage Appliances to accelerate application performance, simplify information management, and lower operating costs. The Silicon Storage Appliance serves at the core of the storage network, bringing unbeatable and guaranteed bandwidth to the production environment. It brings unique superior virtualization and parallelism benefits to broadcasters, and provides unmatched advantages to the production environment. For broadcasters and creative professionals needing high stream count, rock solid audio and video streams, storage and host scalability, and simplified management, DataDirect Networks presents a storage networking technology that sets new standards in application acceleration and plug and play simplicity. With each appliance's ability to supply over 6000 hours of 50Mbit/sec MPEG2@ML content to 90 concurrent streams per appliance, the Silicon Storage Appliance brings performance and scalability benefits to real-time broadcasting and production environments. DataDirect's "format independence" guarantees scaling of capacity and streams from highly-compressed all the way to HD and beyond. Silicon Storage Appliances overcome the many limitations of first generation storage networks, bringing application acceleration with high QoS. Directly supporting up to 512 workstations and 180 Terabytes of storage, DataDirect's technology can simultaneously support a multitude of ingest, NLE, CG, playout and browse stations. DataDirect Networks' Silicon Storage Appliance technology allows creative 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 -- simply and easily -- allows DataDirect Networks' customers to consolidate their storage; the Silicon Storage Appliance technology allows management of up to 100 Terabytes by a single system administrator, providing 10x lower Total Cost of Ownership. Customers using DataDirect's Silicon Storage Appliances include the British Broadcasting Company, Star TV, CineGroupe, Loudeye, NASA, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, NOAA Forecast Systems Lab, U.S. Army Research Lab, White Sands Missile Range, National Century Financial Enterprises, Sandia National Laboratories, and Sonic Foundry, among others. DataDirect SAN partnerships include industry leaders VERITAS, Seagate, Emulex, and QLogic, among others. For more information visit www.datadirectnet.com