BLADE Network Technologies Provides High-Speed Network Infrastructure For The Netezza TwinFin Appliance's Data-Driven Intelligence

BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE), the trusted leader in data center networking, announced that Netezza, the global leader in data warehouse and analytic appliances, has selected BLADE's Ethernet networking portfolio of products to provide the industry's highest-speed cross-platform data fabric. BLADE's top-of-rack and embedded blade switches will provide the data-intensive 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networking for the new Netezza TwinFin appliance, the first in Netezza's family of new blade server-based appliances.

Netezza chose BLADE's RackSwitch and BNT embedded blade switches as the industry's best network building blocks for the new TwinFin system architecture, with advantages that include:

• BLADE's combined top-of-rack and embedded blade switching environment provides the fastest end-to-end data fabric infrastructure available for data warehousing and analytics.
• BLADE's RackSwitch G8124 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch provides the essential high-speed, low-latency fabric for data-intensive networking at the rack level.
• BLADE's BNT 1/10Gb Uplink Ethernet Switch for IBM BladeCenter provides the best option for delivering the high throughput required for data warehousing and analytics.
• BLADE's RackSwitch G8000 provides a highly reliable management network at one third the cost of other Gigabit Ethernet switches.
• The administrator-friendly BLADEHarmony management interface common to BLADE's top-of-rack and blade server network environments provides operational efficiencies and enhances reliability.

"BLADE's high-speed data fabric spans top-of-rack and blade server networking, which enables our Netezza TwinFin appliance to reset the price-performance bar for the data warehouse and analytics market," said John Metzger, vice president, product strategy at Netezza. "The BLADE solution provides high-speed networking and a common management infrastructure to ensure that Netezza can once again extend our clear leadership in providing our customers with the highest levels of data-driven intelligence with the lowest total cost of ownership."

"The Netezza TwinFin appliance demonstrates the breakthrough levels of performance and innovation that can be achieved by leveraging the combined capabilities of BLADE's RackSwitch products in concert with BLADE's market-leading blade server switches," said Vikram Mehta, president and CEO, BLADE Network Technologies. "We are delighted that Netezza chose BLADE's portfolio of network infrastructure products to scale out their customers' critical data management environments with the lowest total cost of ownership."

Through the high-speed data fabric delivered by BLADE's G8124 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch coupled with BLADE's BNT 1/10G Uplink Ethernet Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter, the Netezza TwinFin appliance delivers orders of magnitude faster performance, fast load speeds of up to 2 terabtyes/hour and fast backup and restore rates of as high as 4 terabtyes/hour. Netezza's hallmark performance is achieved through its patented software streaming architecture and a set of database accelerator cards that are seamlessly integrated with industry-standard blade servers combined with BLADE's high-speed, low-latency networking and common BLADEHarmony management framework.

About Netezza Corporation
Netezza Corporation is the global leader in data warehouse and analytic appliances that dramatically simplify high-performance analytics across an extended enterprise. Netezza's technology enables organizations to process enormous amounts of captured data at exceptional speed, providing a significant competitive and operational advantage in today's data-intensive industries, including digital media, energy, financial services, government, health and life sciences, retail and telecommunications. Netezza is headquartered in Marlborough, Massachusetts and has offices in Northern Virginia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Poland, Japan, Korea, Australia and Singapore. For more information, visit www.netezza.com.

About BLADE Network Technologies
BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE) is the leading provider of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet cloud-ready networking solutions for dynamic, enterprise data centers worldwide. In addition to its innovative OEM blade switches, and SmartConnect with VMready virtualization and BLADEHarmony Manager software, BLADE's "Virtual, Cooler, Easier" RackSwitch family enables "Rackonomics" -- an efficient approach for scaling out data center networks to drive down total cost of ownership. BLADE's customers include more than 300 of the Fortune 500 across 26 industry segments, for an installed base representing over 6 million switch ports connecting over 1,350,000 servers and storage systems. For more information, visit www.bladenetwork.net.

SOURCE: BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE)