Release Date: 04/18/2005

SNS Announces Addition of FC/SCSI Support for globalSAN™

Las Vegas, NV—April 18, 2005—Studio Network Solutions (SNS) revealed today that its popular globalSAN iSCSI systems will also offer Fibre Channel and SCSI support. This announcement signals another industry-first for SNS.

globalSAN currently has the distinction of being the only complete, multi-user shared storage iSCSI SAN available for both Mac and PC. The system is offered in turnkey configurations of 8, 16 and 24 SATA drive arrays – each natively capable of supporting the heavy demands of video ingest and audio/video editing.

In addition to supporting up to 24 internal SATA disks, globalSAN will enable iSCSI bridging to external Fibre Channel and SCSI storage devices, making it one of the most flexible iSCSI solutions available. This means that globalSAN owners with existing FC and SCSI storage will have the option to extend iSCSI connectivity of their devices to any computer attached to the IP-SAN.

“Supporting all of these protocols in a single product enables many new and interesting possibilities,” said Eric Newbauer, SNS Director of Operations. “Of importance to many customers will be the option to integrate their existing DAS [Direct Attached Storage] devices into a high-performance IP/Ethernet SAN. To others, it offers the ability to save money and deliver the right level of performance to the right users by implementing tiered storage networking.”

Tiered Networking
The addition of Fibre Channel support will offer the ability to design a storage network with distinct tiers of performance and price. The bridging functionality from iSCSI to FC can be fully realized in a scenario where only a small number of the total users need access to the higher performing, more expensive FC SAN tier. In this case, a smaller FC SAN could be deployed for the high bandwidth consumers, and a larger IP-SAN could be deployed for the group with lower bandwidth requirements. This can translate to substantial savings in a large SAN implementation versus the common practice of connecting all users via Fibre Channel.

End-to-End Digital Storage Management
The enhanced globalSAN products will be adept at facilitating information management throughout more of its lifecycle. For example, a company may ingest several hours of material directly into their globalSAN. The project can be edited directly on the globalSAN by users in separate suites and finished by yet another user. The data never leaves the centralized globalSAN storage throughout the project workflow. The data can be backed up by a SCSI LTO device attached directly to the globalSAN, controlled by a remote archiving computer.

About iSCSI
The iSCSI protocol is an IP-based storage networking standard that enables rapid and efficient transport of block-level I/O data over an IP network. It is very similar to the Fibre Channel SAN protocol – the primary difference being that an iSCSI SAN’s infrastructure can be comprised of economical Ethernet components. iSCSI therefore provides many compelling benefits inherent to the ubiquitous Ethernet.

About Studio Network Solutions
Studio Network Solutions is a storage technology company specializing in products and services for the entertainment industries. Founded in 1998, SNS has become a premier provider of storage area networking products and technologies for real-world media production. For more information, please visit www.studionetworksolutions.com.

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