Hitachi Data Systems Certifies 2 Gb Ready JNI PCI, SBus HBAs for Lightning 9900 Storage Systems in Sun Solaris Environments

Business Wire, Feb 19, 2002

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2002

Certification of JNI HBAs by HDS Now Covers

All Major Sun Solaris Servers As Well As Windows NT,

Windows 2000 and Red Hat Linux

JNI(R) Corporation (Nasdaq:JNIC), the leading provider of Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) for the Solaris environment, today announced that Hitachi Data Systems has certified JNI's 2 Gb Ready(TM) FibreStar(R) PCI and SBus Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs) for use in the Hitachi Freedom Storage(TM) Lightning 9900(TM), the first high-end storage system to introduce 2 Gb Fibre Channel speeds.

Two families of JNI HBAs have been qualified by Hitachi Data Systems: the 2 Gb Ready FCE-6460 PCI and 2 Gb Ready FCE-1473 SBus HBAs. JNI's 2 Gb Ready HBAs are certified to connect Sun Microsystems servers running Solaris 2.6, Solaris 7 or Solaris 8 to all Lightning 9900 family of storage systems, including the Models 9960 and 9910.

The FCE-6460 and FCE-1473 are part of JNI's new family of Emerald IV-based host bus adapters. Emerald IV is JNI's second-generation 2 Gb ASIC controller. JNI was the first company to introduce a 2 Gb host bus adapter in May 1999.

The newly qualified JNI HBAs are the latest in a long line of JNI HBAs to be qualified by HDS over the last several years for all of their storage products. JNI's FibreStar lines of HBAs are certified on nearly all Hitachi Data Systems storage products under Solaris, and JNI's Zentai(TM) PCI bus HBAs are certified to connect to servers running Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000. In addition, JNI HBAs are deployed to Hitachi Data Systems storage connected by servers running Hewlett Packard HP-UX, Red Hat Linux, IBM AIX and Novell NetWare.

JNI's Zentai high availability products are Microsoft certified and the only high availability HBAs providing driver-based host and target level dynamic path management in the Windows environment for Hitachi Freedom Storage.

"JNI continues to deliver the products of choice for Hitachi Data Systems' storage systems connected to Sun Microsystems servers," said Don McNicoll, Sr. Director Product Marketing Hitachi Data Systems. "By certifying JNI's 2 Gb Ready HBAs, we assure our customers can connect the Lightning 9900 family to achieve the highest degrees of performance when 2 Gb SANs are deployed."

"The Lightning 9900 series offers excellent data throughput and true end-to-end 2 Gb performance for Solaris environments using our 2 Gb Ready FibreStar HBAs," said Neal Waddington, president and CEO of JNI Corporation. "JNI is the de facto standard for HBAs in Solaris fabric environments, and these additional qualifications will build on that legacy, especially given the current relationship between Hitachi and Sun Microsystems."

JNI's FCE-6460 HBA on a dual-processor SunFire 6800 and Hitachi's 9900 2 Gb storage system delivered in excess of 200 MB of sustained throughput in block sizes above 16k, with low CPU utilization. These larger block sizes are typical in a database environment, highlighting the potential performance in environments such as Oracle, Sybase or SAP.

Hitachi Freedom Storage Lightning 9900

Launched in June 2000, the Lightning 9900 introduced the revolutionary Hi-Star(TM) "internal switch" architecture that delivers the highest effective internal bandwidth in the industry rated at of 6.4 Gigabytes per second. The Hi-Star architecture eliminates the inherent bottlenecks experienced by the still widely used systems based on the long-established "shared bus" architecture.

FCE-6460/FCE-1473 Overview

JNI's FCE-6460 and FCE-1473 2 Gb HBAs offer the same high performance and enterprise reliability of the industry's first 2 Gb Fibre Channel HBA, which debuted in May 1999. At 2 Gb speed, the FibreStar HBAs offer peak throughput performance of up to 400 megabytes-per-second (MB) in full-duplex mode, approximately 200 MB in half-duplex. On demand 1 or 2 Gb auto rate negotiation enables a smooth and automatic migration path to 2 Gb-enabled storage networks by operating in 1 Gb, 2 Gb or mixed 1 Gb and 2 Gb Fibre Channel environments. Widespread deployment of 2 Gb Fibre Channel infrastructure is expected to take place in 2002.

2 Gb Performance at 1 Gb Price

JNI's 2 Gb Ready FibreStar HBAs are priced competitively with enterprise-level 1 Gb HBAs, but offer on demand 2 Gb performance to assure today's HBAs are positioned for seamless integration with tomorrow's 2 Gb Fibre Channel SANs.

FCE-6460/FCE-1473 Details

JNI's FCE-6460 and FCE-1473 HBAs offer the same high performance and enterprise reliability of the industry's first 2 Gb Fibre Channel HBA, which debuted in May 1999. The new 2 Gb Ready FibreStar HBAs support the following features:

-- Dynamic Speed Selection: On demand 1 or 2 Gb auto rate negotiation enables a
smooth migration path to 2 Gb-enabled storage networks by automatically
adjusting to the proper path speed in 1 Gb, 2 Gb or mixed 1 Gb and 2 Gb Fibre
Channel environments.

-- Full, Automatic Topology Detection: The new HBAs support all three Fibre
Channel topologies -- switched fabric, arbitrated loop and point-to-point --
and detect the topology automatically, eliminating manual configuration,
re-booting the system or reconfiguring the HBA setup.

-- JNI Emerald IV ASIC Controller: The heart of JNI's 2 Gb Ready FibreStar HBA
is the new Emerald IV ASIC controller (JNIC-1460). Each port features a 66 MHz,
64-bit performance with an integrated RISC-based I/O engine and large
instruction RAM that significantly reduces host CPU utilization.

-- EZ Fibre(TM) Support: The 2 Gb Ready FibreStar HBA ships with Java-based EZ
Fibre configuration utility, which simplifies storage adapter installation and
troubleshooting, and offers such features as point-and-click LUN-level zoning.

-- Hardware-Assisted Context Switching: Context switching maximizes SAN data
throughput, increasing overall performance of the SAN.

-- Port ID Binding: JNI HBAs can be configured to provide permanent Port ID
Binding. Port ID Binding is critical in mission-critical applications, where
one or more ports will be identified to provide a specific function, such as
data backup and recovery through a tape storage device. With a permanent Port
ID Binding, backup and recovery is far more efficient than with systems that
create a new Port ID every time a backup process is initiated.

-- SNIA API Support: Like all Emerald IV-based HBAs from JNI, the FCE2-1473
complies with all current SNIA API standards used by storage management
software programs for inband management of the storage network.