SCIENCE

HOUSTON, TX -- Delivering on its promise to provide global storage customers the world's best and most cost-effective storage area network (SAN) solutions, Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ) today announced a new suite of solutions that increase the flexibility, efficiency, and value of storage networks. Anchoring today's announcement is the Compaq StorageWorks EMA16000, one of the highest density enterprise RAID arrays in the industry. With the ability to provide up to 12.2 terabytes (TB) in a single cabinet, the StorageWorks EMA16000 simplifies the physical consolidation of storage that SANs make practical. In addition, the company also announced StorageWorks Integrated SAN switches plus support for McDATA ED-5000 directors to simplify SAN implementation. Array controller software enhancements and storage support upgrades are also available for existing Compaq SAN customers. "Compaq's enhanced SAN solution suite provides our customers with real answers to their business velocity needs," said Roger Archibald, vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Storage Array Division at Compaq. "Today, more than ever, businesses need the flexibility, efficiency, and improved customer service levels a Compaq SAN enables. Compaq is pleased to enhance our industry-leading solutions to help our customers achieve their business goals." The EMA16000 offers customers Compaq's modular architecture that enables them to start with a small storage capacity and easily scale both capacity and performance as application data needs grow. The architecture provides cost effective, flexible SAN growth since a large, up-front investment is not needed to achieve this industry-leading scalability. Storage vendors such as EMC and Hitachi Data Systems provide monolithic architectures that typically require such an investment. Compared with previous versions of the StorageWorks Modular Array family, the EMA16000 offers 33 percent more capacity in dual bus configurations and twice the capacity in single bus configurations. Support for high capacity disks that enable a 12.2 TB configuration will be available later this year. To provide customers with additional efficiencies and flexibility when implementing Compaq SAN solutions, the EMA16000 can be configured with new, higher density switching products as well. Compaq now offers Integrated SAN Switches, available in two models, that feature either 32 or 64 user ports. These new switch offerings provide a cost effective fabric-in-a-box that is pre-assembled and pre-tested to simplify customer implementation tasks. No longer do customers need to order, install, and configure multiple switches to create a mid-size SAN fabric. Compaq has already done the integration work and packaged it with centralized device management to simplify SAN implementation. In addition, Compaq now supports attachment of StorageWorks products to 32-port ED-5000 directors manufactured by McDATA Corporation. As the industry leader in promoting SAN interoperability cooperation between storage vendors, Compaq now supports the vast majority of installed Fibre Channel switches in the world. To increase the value of installed Compaq SANs, Compaq now offers 16% more capacity in the same array rack space plus support for larger storage set sizes (up to a terabyte) with enhanced array controller software. This software also provides a foundation for larger, more scalable SAN configurations by supporting up to 24 servers (96 host ports) per array -- an increase of 50% over previous software versions. In addition, StorageWorks solutions kits have been updated with current support for the 10 most popular operating systems to continue Compaq's heritage of supporting heterogeneous server platforms. For more information visit www.compaq.com