Adaptec "Lightning" Strikes Fast Ethernet Market

Four-port ANA-6944A with new Adaptec Duralink software makes great holiday gift for your mission-critical servers

MILPITAS, Calif. -- December 2, 1996 -- Adaptec unveiled its newest Fast Ethernet adapter today. Codenamed "Lightning", the ANA-6944A adapter is a four-port (Quartet) adapter optimized for Pentium Pro servers. As Windows NT and Pentium Pro servers bring the power, flexibility, and availability of mid-range servers to the PC server world, Lightning is targeted as the network adapter to keep mission-critical applications up and running.

"The rapid acceptance of Windows NT as the mission-critical platform of choice is creating demand for higher peformance and resiliency from server hardware," said Clay Marr, vice president and general manager of the Network Products group at Adaptec, Inc. "Adaptec's new Lightning four-port Fast Ethernet adapter, coupled with Adaptec's Duralink software, addresses those needs. Customers are building powerful servers based on our RAID/SCSI products and our Fast Ethernet adapters. Adaptec is focused on maximizing server performance."

"Windows NT with Pentium Pro is a growing server combination of choice," said J'Amy Napolitan, COO and senior analyst at Infonetics Research. "Products like Adaptec's Lightning adapter will make the transition to the new server platform simple, and will help unleash the power of the NT/P6 combination. This will help users overcome the most frequent network bottleneck--server network performance."

About Lightning

Adaptec's Lightning adapter (ANA-6944A) for PCI systems has four autosensing full duplex 10/100 ports capable of achieving a theoretical maximum aggregate throughput of 800 Mbps per card. To maximize system efficiency and allow network "mixing and matching", each separate port automatically self-configures for either 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps transmissions. To optimize performance, Lightning has a total of 24KB buffer memory. The Lightning adapter achieves high data throughput and low CPU utilization, keeping it at the forefront of Fast Ethernet product performance.

With Duralink, Lightning addresses the most common cause for network failure: a failed link to a hub or switch. The combination of Lightning and Duralink therefore provides higher server availability, keeping mission-critical applications up and running and avoiding costly downtime. Additionally, the adapter utilizes only one PCI bus slot and only one interrupt number, enabling IS departments to use other slots for other NICs or other add-in cards.

The adapter complies with PCI 2.1 specifications and ships with driver support for Windows NT, NetWare, SCO UNIXWARE, and OS/2. For simplified server installations on NetWare, Lightning ships with both NetWare client and server drivers.

About Duralink

Duralink software is a new suite of software services designed by Adaptec for its network interface cards (NICs). The first Duralink software component provides failover and redundancy support for the company's PCI Fast Ethernet adapters. These features empower networks with high availability. Adaptec will be actively developing additional Duralink features during the next quarter. More information on Duralink is available from the accompanying Adaptec release "Adaptec Links Servers To The Future With Duralink."

Pricing and Availability

Lightning (ANA-6944A) is available immediately and has a US manufacturer's suggested retail price of $998. Duralink is available to Adaptec NIC customers at no charge and is packaged free with all PCI Fast Ethernet adapters. Lightning complements Adaptec's existing four-port Fast Ethernet adapters which are used in Pentium servers around the world.

More information on all Adaptec network adapters and software is available on the Web at http://www.adaptec.com/networking.

About Adaptec

Adaptec provides bandwidth management technologies for organizations building the global information infrastructure. Its high-performance I/O, connectivity, and network products are incorporated into the systems and products of major computer and peripheral manufacturers. Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., Adaptec (NASDAQ:ADPT) employs 3000 people worldwide in design, manufacturing, sales, service and distribution.

Adaptec's home page is http://www.adaptec.com.

Document Part Number: W850169-011

For comments and suggestions, please send e-mail to Adaptec's WebMaster