Coppin State University Enhances IP Storage Network with Alacritech, Increasing Server Efficiency While Simplifying It Management.

Alacritech Accelerator Cards Take Burden off Network TCP Processing Providing University with Increased Efficiency and Server Throughput 

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Alacritech Inc., the leader of innovative data-delivery technology, today announced that Coppin State University has enhanced its IP network with Alacritech Network Accelerator cards. With the adoption of Alacritech's Accelerators the university has increased its ERP and SQL application performance, providing university employees reliable access to student information, registration and other administrative data.

As a state-funded university in Baltimore, Maryland, Coppin State had an archaic Fibre Channel SAN that had proven to be difficult to manage and costly to maintain. The complexity affected application performance and slowed the productivity of faculty, staff and students. In order to reduce the complexity Coppin State re-engineered its infrastructure and implemented an iSCSI network. The university replaced standard network interface cards with Alacritech Accelerators, which improved ERP and SQL application performance, simplified IT management and improved storage performance.

"The greatest benefit has been IT efficiency. We now spend 100 hours less a month managing our infrastructure," said Thomas R. Smith III, director of network services, Coppin State University. "And, our iSCSI storage infrastructure is much more reliable. If we see a hit in performance or availability we can immediately eliminate problems right off the bat."

By offloading the TCP processing from the University's 30 HP ProLiant servers, and allowing them to exclusively focus on application processing and data serving, the accelerators have improved the University's server throughput by up to 25 percent. The Alacritech accelerator cards can be installed in minutes versus the hours it takes to install Fibre Channel network cards or competing iSCSI cards. The time savings allows Smith and other members of his IT staff to quickly deploy additional storage capacity or swap-out existing equipment as those needs arise.

"We were extremely pleased with the way Alacritech's Accelerators enhanced the performance of our storage network," said Smith. "They made the move to an iSCSI network incredibly easy, giving us a more efficient, better functioning storage environment that we can trust."

Alacritech's storage and network accelerators are specifically designed to increase both file and block transport while achieving system scalability. Deploying Alacritech's dynamic TCP offload cards results in fewer servers required, less capital, fewer licenses, fewer support requirements and less power consumed.

About Alacritech

Alacritech is the leading provider of innovative data-delivery technology that increases the speed, power and performance of servers, enabling a truly scalable network. Organizations that use Alacritech's proven technology are better able to reduce the burden of network processing on their server, scale to support more clients and applications, achieve higher performance and realize increased network utilization. For more information visit the Alacritech web site at www.alacritech.com or contact the company at [e-mail].