DataDirect Networks Announces Deal with CardioNow

LOS ANGELES - June 10, 2002 - DataDirect Networks, the leading provider of the world's highest performance storage networking appliances, announced that CardioNow, Inc. has selected a S2A 6000 Silicon Storage Appliance to power archival storage and retrieval infrastructure for the cardiac imaging provider. CardioNow based the selection of Silicon Storage Appliance on product's reliability, high availability, and performance in conjunction with DataDirect's service, support and quick response. CardioNow's mission-critical SAN went from purchase order through installation to be fully operational in 24 hours - items that the imaging company feels can only be delivered by a nimble, responsive organization. "The ability to quickly deploy an appliance that consolidates the functionality of a complete, highly reliable SAN in a single device has allowed us to be up and running in less than 24 hours after sending our purchase order to DataDirect," Grady Floyd, president and chief operating officer, CardioNow, said. "Since the appliance functions as the complete SAN network infrastructure, management is simple and easy along with allowing us to avoid the time-consuming process of integration and interoperability adjustments that plague first-generation SAN installations. This, combined with DataDirect's top service and support, brings us a robust, resilient and dependable archival solution in a turnkey package." CardioNow's Internet-based digital imaging storage and communication service for cardiac images is replacing the use of cine films and in-house jukebox-based systems to capture and record angiograms and other procedures performed annually at growing numbers of medical facilities throughout the United States. Cardiologists, referring physicians and other authorized medical professionals affiliated with subscribing hospitals can access their patient's images from any computer that can connect to the Internet. DataDirect's S2A 6000 Silicon Storage Appliance-based infrastructure enables CardioNow to easily expedite the large file sizes associated with DICOM cardiology procedures to and from subscriber hospitals to CardioNow for archival storage and retrieval. Silicon Storage Appliance technology brings healthcare and life science professionals involved in imaging, visualization and entire discovery and development process a way to accelerate their applications, providing data at least three times faster than existing Storage Area Networking (SAN) solutions and ten times faster than Network Attached Storage (NAS) technology. The acceleration of data to applications and users -- simply and easily -- allows DataDirect Networks' customers to consolidate and share their storage; Silicon Storage Appliances also bring management advantages to IT professionals tasked with implementing 24/7/365 storage networking foundations. These benefits include the ability to manage up to 100 Terabytes with a single IT administrator (bringing 10x lower Total Costs of Ownership); dynamic re-configuration of storage quickly, simply and non-disruptively; and the elimination of backup windows. "The benefits that easy-to-deploy Silicon Storage Appliances bring to mission-critical production environments -application acceleration, simple and non-disruptive scaling and easy storage network management - present a very compelling solution for imaging and life science professionals seeking infrastructures to increase productivity, collaboration and workflow," Robert Woolery, vice president, DataDirect Networks, said. "The ability to take an organization into a fully operational SAN in twenty-four hours illustrates how "plug and play" appliances can deliver competitive, cost-effective technology advantages to businesses worldwide." Advanced Technology Brings Management, Scalability Benefits DataDirect Networks has created highly scalable, simple-to-deploy and easy-to-manage Silicon Storage Appliances to accelerate application performance, simplify information management, and to lower operating costs. DataDirect's enterprise-class S2A 6000 Silicon Storage Appliance supplies an aggregate bandwidth of 800 megabytes per second and supports up to 512 servers and 180 terabytes of storage, bringing performance and scalability benefits to scientific and commercial supercomputing centers. The S2A 3000 Silicon Storage Appliance, based on DataDirect's proven S2A 6000 appliance technology, brings a simple-to-deploy, easy-to-manage and affordable storage network appliance that allows departments and workgroups to achieve application performance gains, cost-effective scalability and simplified management. Each S2A 3000 Silicon Storage Appliance supplies an aggregate bandwidth up to 400 megabytes per second to Linux, Unix, Windows NT/2000, Sun, AIX, HP-UX and SGI workgroups. The S2A 3000 can easily manage storage network environments ranging in capacity from 500GB to 7 Terabytes. For more information visit www.datadirectnet.com