QLogic Corp. announced that the industry's first combination 4Gb Fibre Channel/1Gb Ethernet ExpressModule is now shipping for Sun Blade(tm) 6000 and 8000 systems.

The plug-and-play QEM3472 ExpressModule, available from Sun as the Sun StorageTek(tm) Dual 4 Gb Fibre Channel Dual GbE ExpressModule Host Bus Adapter, can be added or removed without powering down or opening Sun Blade systems, maintaining precious uptime. Designed by QLogic based on the PCI ExpressModule industry standard specification the innovative quad port ExpressModule doubles the number of I/O ports available to users.

"Previously, if Sun Blade system customers wanted Ethernet or Fibre Channel ports, they could plug in a dual-port Ethernet ExpessModule or a dual-port Fibre Channel ExpressModule," said Amit Vashi, vice president of marketing, QLogic Host Solutions Group. "The QLogic QEM3472 ExpressModule maximizes server slots, incorporating two Fibre Channel and two Ethernet ports on a single card, doubling the number of available I/O ports."

"The new QLogic ExpressModule combines Ethernet and Fibre Channel into a single card in an industry standard PCI form factor, providing customers increased I/O density and a reduction of I/O cards in a non-proprietary blade I/O architecture," said Mike McNerney, director of x64 Blade Systems, Sun Microsystems. "The card is ideal for I/O rich applications like virtualization, allowing fewer I/O cards and reduced service requirements."

The QEM3472 ExpressModule -- Redefining Enterprise Class I/O Solutions
The QEM3472 ExpressModule, equipped with dual 4Gb Fibre Channel ports and dual 1Gb Ethernet ports, not only delivers unprecedented levels of performance and availability, but also provides intelligent networking features specific to enterprise class data centers. Redefining enterprise-class I/O solutions, the QEM3472 provides increased data protection, advanced frame routing, and enterprise-wide management capabilities.

Sun Blade Systems -- Open and Versatile
Sun delivers the industry's most open and versatile enterprise blade platform, with industry-leading performance, scalability and energy efficiency. Sun offers the broadest blade portfolio on the market, spanning UltraSPARC, AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon and supports operating systems including the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), Linux, Windows and VMware. With hot-swappable, hot-pluggable, redundant modular components to optimize reliability, availability and serviceability, Sun Blade systems are the ideal solution for virtualization, high performance computing, web infrastructure and back office applications.
More information on Sun's blade system portfolio
More information on the StorageTek Dual 4 Gb Fibre Channel Dual GbE ExpressModule HBA

Reliable SAN Infrastructure for Blade Servers from QLogic
Developer of the world's first embedded SAN infrastructure for blade servers, QLogic is the leading supplier of Fibre Channel embedded switches and adapters for blade servers. QLogic adapters and switches provide fast, reliable and scalable storage expansion in an ultra-compact form-factor. Delivering market-leading performance and reliability across the widest range of server and operating systems (OS) platforms, QLogic offers a suite of I/O technology advancements, based on InfiniBand, iSCSI and Fibre Channel technologies, that help storage administrators in large enterprises ensure complete business continuity, maintain application performance and cost-effectively scale their open-standard networks.