Kontron, a leading global provider of embedded and open modular solutions, and Astute Networks, Inc., the leading provider of bladed storage solutions optimized for the most demanding applications on the edge of the network, today announced new industry-setting read/write I/O benchmark results that have a profound ‘bottom-line’ significance for telecom and network equipment providers (TEMs/NEPs) in the IPTV and Video on Demand (VoD) market segments.

Integrated within the Kontron OM9020, a 2U, two-slot AdvancedTCA platform, both the Astute Networks Caspian R1100 Edge Storage Blade (Caspian R1100) and the Kontron AT8030 AdvancedTCA Intel^® based 10GbE node server were lab-tested to achieve an I/O performance of 68K read I/Os per second configured with 375 MB per second read, and 62K write I/Os per second configured with 360 MB per second write using large-block transfers. In comparison, a standard dual processor AdvancedTCA server can only attain 15K I/Os per second at 80 MB per second. Conversely, the Kontron AT8030 AdvancedTCA 10GbE server node is designed with three Intel^® Core™2 Duo processors, each of which is an independent diskless server with its own dedicated memory.

The combined Kontron and Astute Networks solution provides iSCSI over 10GbE support and 1.5 TB of RAID 5 protected storage, capable of sharing 300 standard-definition movies across a large number of subscribers (using 300 GB SAS drives, available in late 2008). Even more interesting to TEMs and NEPs is that this two-bladed platform offering can easily scale up to a redundant 14-slot AdvancedTCA platform that supports 1,800 movies within 9 TB of storage deployable for central office (CO) environments. Any similar proprietary configuration would require nearly three times the space and power.

Migrating proprietary hardware designs to a commercial off-the-shelf platform such as AdvancedTCA offers several price/performance benefits such as reduced cabling, more efficient management, space optimization, balanced processor performance and a fast mesh interconnect between blades for exceptional I/O performance. The Kontron and Astute Networks AdvancedTCA platform enables telecom equipment providers and their service provider clients to mass deploy next-generation media services much more cost effectively and with a much improved time to market than typically achieved with proprietary solutions.

“Equipment provider customers are demanding the ability to mix-and-match the best hardware and software solutions, and support multiple operating systems simultaneously for their next-generation media system applications,” said Sven Freudenfeld, telecom business development director at Kontron. “The significance is we offer an easy path to grow and upgrade their solutions over time without requiring forklift upgrades or complex service calls. The result is a solution that improves time to market and lowers total cost of ownership.”

“Specifically for IPTV-related content delivery applications, most are designed on proprietary hardware and storage systems,” said Fazil Osman, chief technology officer and co-founder at Astute Networks. “The proprietary approach is expensive and limits the ability to use ‘best-in-breed’ hardware and software solutions. The result is that carriers cannot achieve quick time to market, low acquisition costs, low total cost of ownership and best-of-breed performance and features simultaneously. Rather, they are forced to make significant tradeoffs in the architecture of their IPTV system implementations, which negatively impacts their IPTV business model. With the Kontron and Astute Networks solution you have a ‘no trade-off’ standards-based architecture designed for the demands of enabling high-fidelity IPTV/VoD applications.”

The product configuration will be showcased at the AdvancedTCA Summit in Santa Clara, Calif., USA, Oct. 21-23, 2008. Please visit Kontron at booth 211/213 and Astute Networks at booth 310/312 for a live demonstration.

For more information about AdvancedTCA go to: http://www.kontron.com/OMS

About Astute Networks, Inc.

Astute Networks is the leading provider of bladed storage solutions for edge applications such as Telecom Network Control, IPTV/VoD, Military C4I, and video surveillance. Our focus is to provide you the most reliable storage platform with the highest performance, greatest rack densities, and power efficiencies - while being easy to deploy and maintain. Our solutions enable you to achieve lower lifecycle costs, faster time to market and higher competitiveness for you and your company. Astute Networks is located in San Diego, California, and is backed by venture capital firms including Tallwood Venture Capital, Sevin Rosen Funds, Scale Venture Partners, KeyNote Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners and Narra Venture Capital. Additional information is available at www.astutenetworks.com. Astute Networks - Edge Storage Made Simple™

About Kontron

Kontron designs and manufactures standard-based and custom embedded and communications solutions for OEMs, systems integrators, and application providers in a variety of markets. Kontron engineering and manufacturing facilities, located throughout Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, work together with streamlined global sales and support services to help customers reduce their time-to-market and gain a competitive advantage. Kontron’s diverse product portfolio includes: boards and mezzanines, Computer-on-Modules, HMIs and displays, systems, and custom capabilities. Kontron is a Premier member of the Intel® Embedded and Communications Alliance. The company is a recent three-time VDC Platinum vendor for Embedded Computer Boards. Kontron is listed on the German TecDAX stock exchange under the symbol “KBC.” For more information, please visit: www.kontron.com.

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Kontron is a trademark or registered trademark of Kontron AG. Astute Networks and its logo are registered trademarks of Astute Networks, Inc. Intel and Intel Core are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the US and other countries. AdvancedTCA and ATCA are trademarks of the PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group.

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