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posted on 12 February 2008 13:24

February 12, 2008 - NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) today announces the development of the NetApp Kilo Client, a massive testing environment capable of exceeding the most scalable and extreme performance conditions that most enterprises deploy with NetApp solutions in their data centres. The NetApp Kilo Client provides an environment in which utility computing approaches can be tested in real-world environments and on a scale unavailable from other storage vendors today.

Thousands of customers are deploying NetApp storage with larger and larger computing grid environments. In order to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of these data centres, NetApp built the Kilo Client to explore the limits of its storage solutions in a controlled environment and developed best practices in rapid provisioning methodologies. Specifically, NetApp learned how a SAN boot architecture coupled with thin provisioning provides rapid client provisioning and storage consolidation, simplifies the management of large data centre architectures and reduces the level of power consumption, all for huge overall cost savings.

Aad Dekkers, director of Solutions Marketing, EMEA, at NetApp, said: "The NetApp Kilo Client is a breakthrough architecture that pushes the limits in the testing and development of enterprise grid compute environments. This environment was made possible for our customers due to close collaboration with key partners like AMD, Blade Network Technologies, Brocade, Chelsio Communications, Cisco, IBM, Intel, QLogic, Qlusters and VMware. The Kilo Client is a technology that

delivers the day-to-day business efficiencies promised by utility computing and makes those efficiencies not just a theoretical possibility, but a practical consideration for commercial usage today."

The Kilo Client, a 1,500-node diskless enterprise server farm located at the NetApp RTP facilities, runs multiple operating systems including Windows, UNIX and Linux. Additionally, the Kilo Client supports NAS, FC SAN and IP SAN protocols. The system leverages NetApp FlexClone technology to rapidly create system images without making full physical copies of those images. This approach affords near-instantaneous image provisioning, maximum performance and unprecedented flexibility in a footprint of just over 300 square feet.

Dekkers continued: "NetApp is taking a holistic approach to helping users test and build the most energy-efficient data centres without sacrificing performance and scalability. The NetApp Kilo Client affords end users the right insight into pulling the maximum utilisation from their storage and server virtualisation resources. This isn't a technology of the future - there is absolutely nothing in the Kilo Client test lab that can't be leveraged by NetApp customers today."

The NetApp Kilo Client is an example of how NetApp is helping customers with their data centre transformation. To read more about the innovative solutions NetApp introduced today that is ushering in the next wave of data centre transformation, read the separate press release at

http://www.netapp.com/news/press/news_rel_20080212.

For more information on the NetApp Kilo Client, please visit http://www.netapp.com/library/tr/3566.pdf and http://www.netapp.com/go/techontap/matl/downloads/EMA_Kilo.pdf.