Adaptec, Inc. has signed an OEM purchase agreement with IBM to become a global supplier of 1Gbit and 10Gbit iSCSI host bus adapter cards and related chips.
“This agreement validates Adaptec’s top position in the iSCSI TOE sector, and shows IBM’s further commitment to iSCSI across the board,” stated Steve Duplessie, senior analyst at The Enterprise Storage Group. “When a company with IBM’s status decides to mainstream a technology, it tends to ramp quickly. This could be the catalyst to getting iSCSI on the map.”
“iSCSI TCP/IP offload engines are designed to improve the performance of iSCSI solutions,” said Paul Mattson, manager of IP Storage for IBM Storage Systems Group. “Adaptec’s IP connectivity products can be used with IBM iSCSI products such as IBM’s TotalStorage 200i, to provide customers with improved performance for IP SANs.”
Ram Jayam, vice president and general manager of Adaptec’s Storage Networking Group, said, “IBM and Adaptec partnering on iSCSI is a significant milestone for the industry, and will pave the way for iSCSI adoption this year.”
Adaptec’s storage networking products include a family of IP Storage ASICs and ASIC-based adapters with protocol acceleration for iSCSI, FCIP, FC-to-iSCSI, and TCP/IP connectivity. The Company’s adapters and ASICs enable integrated iSCSI connectivity for storage and server platforms, providing efficient, high-performance data transfer rates of up to 2Gbits per second (full duplex). Adaptec’s IP Storage technology is currently being designed into products from several major OEMs.