ULTERA DOUBLES PERFORMANCE OF STRIPER SERIES TAPE ARRAY CONTROLLER WITH NEW LVD VERSION

LAGUNA HILLS, Calif., November 22, 1999.... Ultera Systems, the leading tape array controller and tape array system supplier, today unveiled a new version of its Striper™-3 tape array controller, adding LVD SCSI support and doubling the data rate up to 80 MB/sec.

Ultera’s new Striper-3 LVD array controller achieves the performance boost by incorporating QLogic Corp.’s new Fast Architecture SCSI (FAS) processors. Another industry first for Ultera, the Striper-3 LVD is the first product to incorporate six QLogic FAS processors in a single unit. The Striper-3 LVD utilizes a FAS466 SCSI processor, enabling communications between the array controller and the host at unparalleled data rates of up to 80 MB/sec, and five FAS368 SCSI processors, each dedicated to controlling an individual SCSI tape drive in the array. With the introduction of the Striper-3 LVD, Ultera now sets the speed and performance record in controller board technology throughout the industry.

With the enhanced performance enabled by LVD SCSI, Ultera has delivered its highest-performance array controller ever with throughput that even rivals more expensive Fibre Channel devices, while maintaining the value and wide compatibility of SCSI.

"As corporate data sets continue to grow geometrically, there is a corresponding requirement for enhanced throughput tape solutions to protect these enormous volumes of data," said Fred Bedard, vice president, sales and marketing at Ultera Systems. "Ultera joined with QLogic to meet this challenge with 100 percent data rate improvement of the Striper-3 LVD."

"We are pleased that Ultera selected us as their I/O controller supplier for this performance-leading application," said David Tovey, vice president and general manager of QLogic's Peripheral Products Group. "Our complete family of hardware and firmware compatible LVD SCSI and Fibre Channel general purpose I/O solutions is particularly suited for high throughput applications requiring fast time-to-market with minimum I/O bus compatibility risk."

Ultera Systems provides unprecedented tape performance with its innovative line of tape array controllers. Ultera’s Striper-3 LVD controllers can be configured for RAID-1 operation, mirroring data to a pair of drives, or RAID-3, with data and parity information striped across a set of two or four drives. This configuration offers fault-tolerance, allowing tape backup operations to continue, even in the event of a drive or media failure, as well as the fastest available performance by utilizing the cumulative bandwidth of all attached tape drives. An optional parity drive can be added to maximize reliability of the tape array.

Data mirroring mode simplifies disaster recovery by writing the "data" to up to five separate drives simultaneously and supports off-line copy operations, providing high speed media duplication and verification without host system intervention. Ultera’s Striper-3 LVD array controller is plug-and-play compatible with all popular SCSI tape drives, including DLTtape*, AIT*, Mammoth*, DDS* and SLR*.

The Ultera product line includes the following models:

Striper Series: high-end tape array controller that stripes data across up to five independent parallel array channels allowing for fast – up to 40 MB/sec. – flexible and highly reliable data protection.

LibraryMaster Series: extends the tape array paradigm to the library level, creating an array of multi-drive libraries utilizing Ultera’s third-generation Tape RAID technology to provide the highest tape performance, backup/restore automation and fault-tolerant data protection while complementing existing tape technologies.

Imager Series: allows simultaneous creation of two or more identical backup tapes in real time with no additional system overhead or software changes necessary.

Shadow Master Series: provides real-time data mirroring across multiple tape loaders and libraries for the ultimate in data reliability and disaster recovery.

About Ultera Systems
Ultera Systems, Inc. is the leading manufacturer of RAID Tape Array controllers and subsystems designed for high-speed backup, archive and high-speed data acquisition applications. All industry standard tape drives, tape libraries and storage management software are compatible with the Ultera Arrays. Its tape array product lines are marketed under the trade names "Striper," "Imager," "LibraryMaster" and "ShadowMaster," and sold through OEMs, VARs and Systems Integrators worldwide. Ultera is based in Laguna Hills, Calif.

For further information, call (949) 367-8800, email inform@ultera.com or visit Ultera's web site at http://www.ultera.com.