BLADE Network Technologies Puts Dutch National University Research Consortium in the Picture for High Definition Media

MUNICH, GERMANY, Nov 04 (MARKET WIRE) --
BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE), the trusted leader in data
center networking, today announced that its BLADE RackSwitch G8124 and
G8000 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switches have been successfully deployed
by The Netherlands' Advanced School for Computing and Imaging (ASCI) in
its Distributed ASCI Supercomputer 3 (DAS-3) High Performance Cluster
Computing system.

BLADE Network Technologies was selected for its ability to deliver
high-performance cost-effective 10GbE solutions that can further enhance
the network performance of DAS-3 with key traffic management features and
ultra-low latency, as well as meet ASCI's requirements for high throughput
10GbE server connectivity for powering ultra high-definition
visualization.

ASCI DAS-3 runs over a country-wide grid computing access network and
enables ASCI research teams at disparate sites, including four
universities, to jointly collaborate on various aspects of parallel,
distributed and grid computing, as well as large-scale multimedia content
analysis.

A BLADE RackSwitch G8124 24-port 10GbE switch is complementing and
enhancing the existing access network which features a novel internal
high-speed wide-area interconnect called StarPlane, based on dedicated
10GbE lightpaths from SURFnet, the country's National Research and
Education Network provider. In addition to high throughput and low
latency 10GbE performance characteristics, the rich layer 2 and layer 3
network feature sets supported by the BLADE RackSwitch G8000 and
RackSwitch G8124 switches will enable more control over the establishment
of StarPlane links between the five sites. BLADE's RackSwitch Active
Multi-Path (AMP) function, for example, will support segregation of
traffic ensuring more efficient usage of lightpaths and without the need
to block links and force traffic over intermediary hops.

A multimedia laboratory with high-end visualisation infrastructure being
built by the VU University in Amsterdam will also connect to DAS-3 to
leverage the available compute and video resources. This initiative is
part of the Intertain project with the lab at VU University to be served
by a BLADE RackSwitch G8000 switch enabling a high performance, low
latency dual 10GbE connection to a ultra-HD video system that can be
accessed and shared by the other participating sites over the StarPlane
network.

Experiments carried out by Intertain will be in cooperation with the
world-wide CineGrid organization which was started to stimulate
production, use and exchange of very high-quality digital media across
networks. An example is CineGrid being responsible for the live broadcast
of the Holland Festival in Amsterdam to a 4,000-seat theatre at the
University of California in 2007. The broadcasting resolution was five
times better than that of a standard HDTV broadcast.

Commented prof. Henri Bal, ASCI: "DAS-3 is an ambitious High Performance
Distributed Computing (HPDC) environment prototyping various novel
protocols and systems for the processing and sharing of very large amounts
of data on a computational grid. In the large-scale use cases investigated
on our system, often much higher bandwidths, lower latencies and more
consistent network performance are required than would be typical for
enterprise environments. For our project we chose the BLADE RackSwitch
equipment specifically based on their rich functionality combined with an
excellent price/performance."

"Our success at ASCI is a perfect high profile example of how BLADE's
RackSwitch family meets the expectations of users with even the most
demanding high bandwidth and application-intensive requirements, enabling
them to fully realize the benefits of HPC-class 10GbE networks more
affordably and efficiently," said Charles Ferland, vice president of EMEA,
BLADE Network Technologies.

About the Advanced School for Computing and Imaging (ASCI)

ASCI is a computer science research school recognized by the Netherlands.
It was established by TU Delft, the VU University, the University of
Amsterdam, the University of Leiden and the University of Utrecht. In
addition to these universities, DAS-3 is funded by The Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research, the VL-e, and The Multimedia
Consortium (UvA-MN).

About BLADE's RackSwitch Product Family

BLADE's new RackSwitch G8124 rounds out BLADE's RackSwitch top-of-rack
data center switch family. This includes the RackSwitch G8100, a
low-latency 24-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet switched equipped with CX4
transceivers for low power, low cost and very low latency, and the
RackSwitch G8000, a 1-10GbE aggregation switch equipped with 48 Gigabit
Ethernet ports and up to four 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports with either SFP+
or CX4 transceivers in a 1U footprint.

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,
representing nearly 7 million switch ports connecting over 2 million
servers and storage systems in data centers around the globe. Visit:
www.bladenetwork.net. Twitter: @BLADENetwork.

BLADE Network Technologies, the BLADE logo, SmartConnect, and VMready are
trademarks of BLADE Network Technologies. All other copyrights and marks
are owned by their respective owners.

CONTACTS:

USA:
Maxine Bingham
BLADE Network Technologies
(408) 886-5028
Email Contact

Zee Zaballos
ZNA Communications
(831) 425-1581 x201
Email Contact

The Netherlands:
Robbert Minderhoud
Pride PR
+31 71 568 0028
Email Contact

UK:
Sara Collinge/Nigel Parker
Strategic PR
+44 (0) 1494 434434
Email Contact

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