Nexsan Simplifies Windows-Based SANs With Microsoft's Virtual Disk Service And QLogic SANsurfer VDS Manager

WOODLAND HILLS, Calif., August 10, 2004 - Nexsan Technologies, the leader in innovative storage solutions, today announced that its InfiniSANT disk-based storage systems will be tested to work with Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Virtual Disk Service (VDS) and applications that support VDS, as well as QLogic SANsurfer® VDS Manager , an application that complements the command-line interface of Windows with a graphical user interface for point-and-click volume management.

"Nexsan is simplifying SANs for Windows administrators by developing a VDS Provider for their InfiniSAN disk-based storage systems," said Claude Lorenson, product manager, storage technologies at Microsoft Corp. "With the ability to better manage their storage through Microsoft Virtual Disk Service, Nexsan customers will benefit greatly."

Virtual Disk Service is included with Windows Server 2003, and QLogic makes the SANsurfer VDS Manager downloadable at no charge from www.qlogic.com. As a result, the Windows-based solution from Nexsan and QLogic simplifies storage management for small and medium businesses, lowering the cost of a customer's storage infrastructure.

"Growing businesses can look to Windows Server 2003 and SANsurfer VDS Manager as an excellent way to achieve high-end management features in an easy to use, cost-effective package," said Brendan Kinkade, vice president of marketing at Nexsan. "Implementing Nexsan storage will complete the SAN at a price and capacity - less than a penny per megabyte - that SMBs will find extremely attractive."

"Nexsan's certification adds great value and flexibility to a SAN for the small to midrange customer," said Frank Berry, vice president of marketing, QLogic Corp. "Nexsan disk products, combined with QLogic SANsurfer VDS Manager and the Windows Server 2003 operating system, make life much easier for experienced or first-time SAN users. This is another step toward making SANs easier to use and affordable to implement."

Nexsan's award-winning InfiniSAN products provide the latest advancements in ATA technology to help expand storage capacity, improve business continuance, and increase ROI for operations of all sizes and all types of computing environments. The InfiniSAN ATAboy2T series provides enterprise-class features and functionality in an advanced ATA disk-based solution that can scale from a correct-cost, entry-level solution up to meet the demands of the most storage intensive midrange and enterprise applications. ATAbabyT delivers high capacities at a very affordable price point, making it the ideal storage platform for small to medium business environments.

Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Virtual Disk Service
The Microsoft Virtual Disk Service simplifies disk management by enabling the administrator to use a standardized storage management user interface, accessible from any Windows console, to manage both multi-vendor storage arrays and direct attached storage (DAS). This design alleviates the problem of multiple non-standardized management tools. It also enables the administrator to obtain an aggregated view of all storage, and facilitates several solutions, such as extending disk space without administrator intervention. VDS provides the administrator with the flexibility to decide how to access the standardized interface through a command line interface (CLI) or third party graphical user interface (GUI).

QLogic SANsurfer VDS Manager
Designed for simple SAN deployment, QLogic SANsurfer VDS Manager complements the Microsoft Windows Server 2003 VDS Command Line Interface (CLI) with a graphical user interface (GUI) for point-and-click discovery of servers and multi-vendor disk arrays, configuration of RAID levels, and configuration of logical volumes. SANsurfer Management Suite with VDS Manager will ship with every QLogic HBA, switch and SAN Connectivity Kit for Windows 2003 and will be downloadable from http://www.qlogic.com.

About Nexsan Technologies
Nexsan Technologies, headquartered in Woodland Hills, Calif. has changed the way IT managers are storing and protecting corporate data. From the outset, Nexsan has moved to the forefront because it recognized the need for corporate managers to "do more with less." Nexsan was the first on the scene to deliver award-winning storage solutions that provide, for the first time, correct-cost pricing, without sacrificing features and performance, and ones that make good business sense for virtually every size company. Every Nexsan product is a total solution, with unprecedented ease of use, features, performance and reliability - all priced to fit the requirements of IT managers worldwide. For more information, please see the company's website at http://www.nexsan.com.

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Infinisan, ATAboy2 and ATAbaby are trademarks of Nexsan Technologies. Other companies and products mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade names of their respective owners.