BLADE Network Technologies and Global Distribution Connect Multimedia Industry with Affordable Tape-Based Archiving

BLADE RackSwitch provides fast, low-latency networking required for managing digital assets using Global Distribution's Infinity Archive Server

SANTA CLARA, Calif. and CAMBRIDGE, UK­­ - October 6, 2009 - BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE), the trusted leader in data centre networking, and Global Distribution, announced today that BLADE's Gigabit and 10 Gigabit RackSwitch provides the high-speed networking that enables Global Distribution's Infinity Archive Server to provide high-performance archive storage for the most demanding Media Asset Management (MAM) solutions for post-production and broadcast facilities. Global Distribution, a leading UK-based distributor of data storage components and solutions throughout Europe, is a member of BLADE's RackSwitch Solution Partner Program.

Global Distribution's entry level version of the Infinity Archive Server incorporates a high-performance storage server including 14 teraybytes of RAID 6-protected enterprise SATA storage, a 64-bit operating system, a 25/50-slot LTO-4 tape library, Xendata's digital archive software that is optimised for digital image and video archives and BLADE's Gigabit or 10 Gigabit Ethernet RackSwitch. The Infinity Archive Solution is compatible with leading MAM applications including Final Cut Server.

"We are delighted to be working with BLADE Network Technologies in the development of our Infinity Archive appliance which received huge interest during its US launch at NAB earlier this year and again in Europe during IBC last month," said Keith Warburton, Managing Director, Global Distribution. "The broadcast industry is going digital and management of digital assets including long term archive is very important so we are offering ultra-fast, very low-latency Ethernet switching using switches that BLADE Network Technologies provides. This enables digital assets to be exchanged between systems with as little latency as possible in order to aid collaborative workflow."

"Traditionally, multimedia production companies and broadcasters have either used analogue tape or conventional hard drive solutions for archive, but the industry is realising that the total cost of ownership for these very large disk-based systems is too high," said Warburton. "The Infinity Archive Server combines the best of proven RAID and tape technologies to provide an easy-to-use archive that connects over IP providing a ubiquitous interface. The combination with the BLADE RackSwitch provides very fast and low-latency access to the Infinity Archive Server."

About Infinity Archive Server

The Infinity Archive Server presents the tape library and RAID protected magnetic disk cache as a logical drive letter that may be shared over a network seamlessly connecting to Mac, Windows and Linux environment as a standard SMB or NFS share. Video files are written to and retrieved from the digital archive as though from a standard logical hard drive.

"Networking is critical to ensure that huge amounts of data are being transferred as fast as possible," said Warburton. "With BLADE's Rackswitch, we have the flexibility to offer both Gigabit and 10 Gigabit to deliver extremely functional solutions that cost half that of our competitors, while offering easy integration into existing customer infrastructure."

The Infinity Archive Server supports Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) and provides for online management, near line and offline media based on administrator-defined policies. These policies define retention times on disk cache, the specific groups of tapes to which the files will be written and the scheduling of replication of tape cartridges. On writing a file to the archive, it is first cached on the magnetic disks and then queued to be streamed to data tape. After the file has been successfully written to tape, it can be deleted from disk cache. Even though the files are now archived on tape, the file and associated metadata remain online.

About BLADE RackSwitch

BLADE's 1U RackSwitch product family extends virtualization by mirroring the benefits of server and storage virtualization within the network at the rack level, saves energy through rack-friendly cooling and alleviates management pain by removing complexity through simplified management and fabric convergence. BLADE's new RackSwitch G8124 with SFP+, offers the industry's lowest per-port pricing, power consumption less than two standard light bulbs and cable costs a fraction of fiber optics. More information on RackSwitch family is at: http://www.bladenetwork.net/BLADE-RackSwitch-4.html.

Availability

Global Distribution's Infinity Archive Server with BLADE RackSwitch is available through Global Distribution's authorized VARs worldwide. Contact: sales@globaldistribution.com.

About Global Distribution

Global Distribution is a specialist distributor delivering solutions to satisfy the needs of storage-intensive and archive applications such as digital video, HPC, CCTV, broadcast and other rich media and content generation markets. Global works with leading technology developers to deliver innovative and effective solutions to help our partners address these markets. For more information, visit http://www.globaldistribution.com/.

About BLADE Network Technologies

BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE) is the leading provider of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet cloud-ready networking solutions for dynamic, enterprise data centers worldwide. In addition to its innovative OEM blade switches, and SmartConnect with VMready virtualization and BLADEHarmony Manager software, BLADE's "Virtual, Cooler, Easier" RackSwitch family enables "Rackonomics" -- an efficient approach for scaling out data center networks to drive down total cost of ownership. BLADE's customers include more than 300 of the Fortune 500 across 26 industry segments, for an installed base representing over 6 million switch ports connecting over 1,350,000 servers and storage systems. Visit: http://www.bladenetwork.net/../../../../. Twitter: @BLADENetwork.

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BLADE Network Technologies, the BLADE logo, BLADEHarmony, RackSwitch, RackSwitch Solution Partner, SmartConnect and VMready are trademarks of BLADE Network Technologies. All other names or marks are property of their respective owners.

CONTACTS:

Maxine Bingham

BLADE Network Technologies

(408) 886-5028

press@bladenetwork.net

Sara Collinge

Strategic PR

+44 (0) 1494 434434

sarac@strategicpr.net

Keith Warburton

Global Distribution

+44 (0) 870 464 0600

keith@globaldistribution.com

Further information (external website)