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EqualLogic PS Series iSCSI SAN Qualified for VMware Infrastructure 3 Environments

VMware and EqualLogic Complete Interoperability Testing  of EqualLogic PS Series with Industry’s Flagship Virtualization Solution from VMware

Nashua, N.H.— October 2, 2006—EqualLogic®, a leading provider of enterprise-class iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions, today announced that EqualLogic’s PS Series storage has been qualified with VMware Infrastructure 3.  Based on the completion of interoperability testing, EqualLogic PS Series will now be included in the Storage / SAN Compatibility Guide for VMware ESX Server 3, now part of VMware Infrastructure 3, as a supported storage platform.  This compatibility is designed to provide customers with an integrated and jointly supported environment when deploying VMware Infrastructure with EqualLogic SANs.

By deploying EqualLogic SANs with VMware Infrastructure 3, IT managers are leveraging a simple, flexible and cost-effective virtual storage solution that can adapt to changing business requirements.  EqualLogic’s PS Series SAN enables simple storage consolidation, which enables a virtual infrastructure to increase storage utilization, enrich corporate data protection methods, facilitate disaster recovery and enhance virtualized server availability and workload migration.  In addition, EqualLogic’s fully redundant infrastructure provides an easy-to-use and disaster-tolerant SAN solution for VMware Infrastructure 3.

“Our customers’ VMware enterprise deployments require true enterprise-class data protection, with fully redundant infrastructures and remote-site disaster recovery capabilities – the PS Series’ built-in storage management capabilities meet these customer needs out-of-the-box,” said John Joseph, vice president of marketing at EqualLogic.  “With the fantastic growth rates that iSCSI SANs and infrastructure virtualization technologies are experiencing, our partnership with VMware is a factor in driving widespread adoption of EqualLogic’s storage arrays.”

“Combining the EqualLogic PS Series and VMware ESX Server 3 is a great example of the power and efficiency of deploying iSCSI SANs with VMware Infrastructure 3.  Such combinations enable customers to optimize their computing and storage infrastructures.  They also deliver the dynamic data center capabilities of VMware Infrastructure 3,” said Parag Patel, senior director of storage ecosystem alliances at VMware.  “VMware Infrastructure 3’s native support of iSCSI demonstrates VMware’s commitment to working with EqualLogic and the iSCSI ecosystem for our customers’ benefit.”

Additionally, companies worldwide are adopting VMware Infrastructure 3 and EqualLogic PS Series virtualized SANs as iSCSI becomes increasingly popular for networked storage.  The IDC Worldwide Disk Storage Systems 2006-2010 Forecast and Analysis report published in May projected that the iSCSI SAN market will continue to be the fastest-growing segment of the storage industry through 2010.

Companies that are jointly deploying VMware Infrastructure 3 and EqualLogic storage platforms into production include:

• Arch Coal, Inc.
• Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Group, Inc.
• Intermec Technologies Corp.
• Kane County, Ill.
• Mount Saint Mary College
• Pathfire
• Steel and Pipe Supply Company
• VSR Financial Services.

“As the leading supplier of digital media distribution and asset management technology and services to the television news and entertainment industries, we require a highly reliable, enterprise-class storage and systems architecture to support our customers’ mission-critical 24x7 media services,” said Mike Stawchansky, Senior Systems Administrator at Pathfire.  “We’ve deployed EqualLogic storage and VMware Infrastructure 3 into our back office systems at our Roswell, Georgia facility, supporting our Digital Media Gateway Network which is used to distribute digital video to broadcasters worldwide.  Using EqualLogic and VMware together significantly reduced the complexity of our environment, allowing us to consolidate both servers and storage with an innovative solution that is not only cost effective and simple to manage but also delivers better performance than alternative products.”

The compatibility between the EqualLogic PS Series and VMware Infrastructure 3, as noted in the Storage / SAN Compatibility Guide for VMware ESX Server 3, includes iSCSI base connectivity, storage processor failover, boot from SAN, network interface card failover and host bus adapter failover.  In addition, the PS Series is compatible with VMware Infrastructure 3’s advanced features including VMware VMotion technology for eliminating downtime, VMware High Availability to ensure uptime of virtual machines and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler for automated workload distribution.

EqualLogic is a member of the VMware Technology Alliance Program.  Membership in the program allows EqualLogic and VMware to jointly drive go-to-market efforts and technical solutions in support of our mutual customers.

About EqualLogic
EqualLogic®, Inc., is the leading provider of intelligent, enterprise-class iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions that enable businesses – from Fortune 100 to small and mid-size organizations in more than 30 countries worldwide – to realize the economic benefits of consolidated, self-managing storage.  The EqualLogic PS Series of storage arrays, based on the company's patented peer storage architecture delivers operational simplicity, comprehensive data management services and high data availability in a single, scalable pool of storage.  EqualLogic's headquarters are located in Nashua, New Hampshire. For more information, please visit http://www.equallogic.com.


EqualLogic® is a registered trademark of EqualLogic®, Inc. Other marks belong to their respective owners.

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Vee Baker
EqualLogic
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