Genroco to Deliver Ultra High Performance Storage Systems.

SLINGER, Wis.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 23, 1999--

Industry standard solutions integrate with existing infrastructures

GENROCO, Inc. (GENROCO) (OTC Bulletin Board: "GRCI") announced today that the Company would begin producing ultra high performance storage systems based on its Gigabyte System Network (GSN) to Fibre Channel (FC) bridge.

In a move away from its traditional role as a supplier of Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) and Network Interface Cards (NICs), the Wisconsin-based firm has initiated efforts to begin delivering very large disk arrays capable of storing and retrieving trillions of bytes of data at billions of bytes per second before the end of 1999.

The Company has already demonstrated the technology at a number of supercomputing sites around the world.

In response to an insatiable demand for higher speed information archiving facilities which can interoperate with existing network infrastructure, GENROCO has developed a family of HBAs, switches and routers, all of which are designed to utilize a new protocol called Schedule Transfer (ST). These products are being sold into a variety of applications oriented around very large Storage Area Networks (SANs) with backbone speeds of gigabytes per second between a number of industry standard communication fabrics such as Gigabit Ethernet and Asynchonous Transfer Mode (ATM).

"Our proprietary enabling technology allows end-users to seamlessly connect platforms sold by any of the major vendors, and build heterogeneous networks capable of connecting thousands of individual workstations to petabytes of data storage," said Carl Pick, Chairman and CEO of GENROCO. "Though initially based on GSN backbones, this technology will also be used to enhance the performance of Future I/O (FIO) and Next Generation I/O (NGIO), emerging alternatives to GSN now under development by major companies in the computer industry."

The Company's GSN Storage Array Controller aggregates eight FC data streams into a single GSN channel, implementing a 750 megabyte per second connection to a switch over a single cable. GENROCO produces additional modules capable of interfacing other standard network protocols to GSN backbones or switched fabrics. Current FC RAID storage subsystems are only one eighth the throughput of the GENROCO product and can not use any other interface but FC for direct attach.

Chris Good, Chief Technical Officer for GENROCO said, "We plan to work with major storage technology companies to integrate, install, and maintain the new offerings worldwide. Our new storage systems will be the foundation for everything from next generation Internet to HDTV on demand services as well as other storage and bandwidth applications of the new millenium.

About Schedule Transfer (ST)

ST is a new network protocol designed to allow many times higher bandwidth with much lower host platform overhead than TCP/IP or any other current industry standard. An ST data movement over any type of network commences, or is "scheduled", only when a ready transmit buffer is matched by an equal sized, ready receive buffer at the destination. This allows the sending and receiving engines at endpoints of a network to operate at the highest possible speed and efficiency by eliminating buffer overruns and underruns.

About Gigabyte System Network (GSN)

GSN, is the highest bandwidth and lowest latency open system industry standard (ANSI HIPPI-6400-PH, ANSI NCITS 323-1998), providing full duplex 6400 megabit (800 megabyte) per second channels of error-free, flow controlled data. The technology is ideal wherever organizations require timely movement of large amounts of information including scientific and technical computing, digital TV and movie production, data mining, transaction processing, video and film archiving, and storage management. The ANSI standard provides for interoperability with disparate technologies including Ethernet, Fibre Channel, ATM, HIPPI-800, and other standards. The GSN fabric operates at a full duplex data rate of 1.6 gigabytes per second making it an ideal backbone for multiplexing Fibre Channel storage data streams.

Further information about GSN and ST can be found at http://www.hippi.org/ .

About GENROCO

GENROCO, Inc. is a 25 year old, publicly traded engineering and marketing company that specializes in developing I/O solutions for users of high performance storage area networks (SANs) and video servers. By providing cross-platform support for its patented technology, the Company is able to offer unique, extraordinarily high bandwidth, low host overhead products for these markets. GENROCO enjoys a global customer base that includes Compaq, Tektronix, Fujitsu, SGI, Sun, Hewlett-Packard, the US Departments of Defense and Energy, CERN, and other research institutions.

Additional information about GENROCO can be found at http://www.genroco.com/ .

SOURCE: DigitalWork ( http://www.digitalwork.com )

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