March 27, 2006 Tel Aviv, Israel -- PacketLight Networks has upgraded its PL-10 SAN extension platform to target small and medium size businesses (SMBs). The company says the enhanced product meets cost and ease-of-use requirements specific to the SMB market.
PacketLight contends that most SMBs cannot easily afford the cost of SONET/SDH throughput at 155 Mbit/sec or 622 Mbit/sec, or higher; therefore, the company says it designed its PL-10 platform to support "N x VC12 or N x VT1.5" rates of throughput, allowing carriers to sell SAN extension services at speeds of "N x 2 Mbit/sec or N x 1.5 Mbit/sec," while providing "SONET/SDH reliability" and security at low data rates more affordable to SMBs.
The PL-10 platform is a storage and Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) transport system for metro access applications which transports a single Fiber Channel (FC)/GbE client into an OC-3/STM-1 GFP/VCAT trunk. The platform is suitable for small-scale business continuity applications at a customer's premises. Additionally, PackeLight says the PL-10 products transport FC service "over hundreds of kilometers with no packet loss."
"The risk of losing business-critical information and the need to share information between remote sites has created an environment where SAN island connectivity is a must for large organizations and SMBs alike," observes Avi Katz, VP of marketing at PacketLight. "Prior to the PL-10 upgrade, carriers provided SAN extensions that targeted large carriers; however, now they can offer the SMB market a SAN extension service that meets their budget."