MountainGate and LSC Sign Product Development Agreement

(SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA) -- LSC, Inc. announced that it has entered into an agreement with MountainGate, Reno, Nevada to jointly pursue optimum solutions for the Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) market.

Under the agreement, MountainGate, a developer and manufacturer of high-performance, high-capacity storage systems, and LSC, a premier provider of data storage management software, will pursue joint business opportunities and technical developments to enhance existing product offerings and develop new storage management products.

Key to the agreement, LSC has already modified its well-recognized Storage and Archive Manager File System (SAM-FS) to enable the MountainGate Chaparral Digital Linear Tape (DLT) robotic library series to operate at maximum performance and efficiency. SAM-FS is an HSM software product which cost-effectively manages the storage of up to hundreds of terabytes of near-line data and protects it against accidental loss -- the perfect complement to MountainGate's Chaparral DLT library line with storage capacity ranging from 560 GB to 134.4 TB.

Gene Barbera, MountainGate's product marketing manager for near-line systems says that the integration of LSC's high-performance software with MountainGate's high-performance library system will provide HSM customers optimal performance in storage solutions.

"For example," he says, "the dual-handler mechanism in MountainGate's library system is capable of performing 350 tape exchanges an hour. LSC's software is able to take advantage of that feature, which places the product on the high end of robotic performance and provides one of the highest performing software and hardware combinations on the market today."

Other storage products, such as MountainGate's Renegade and Stampede RAID systems are currently being qualified for use with SAM-FS. Either product, integrated with LSC's software and used with the library systems, will provide a near-line solution with even greater speed and flexibility.

Jim Murdakes, LSC's President and CEO, comments on the significance of storage hardware manufacturers joining forces with software developers whose combined technologies ultimately provide end users with the most cost-effective solution in managing data.

"The enterprise wants storage solutions that will plug and play," says Murdakes. "The relationship between LSC and MountainGate essentially eliminates the hassle of customers having to hunt for hardware and software compatibility. Customers can be confident that our SAM-FS software and MountainGate's storage products not only work together, they enable the user to take advantage of the performance capabilities designed into the MountainGate and LSC products.

MountainGate, located in Reno, Nevada, has provided industry-leading removable and rugged data storage products for more than 20 years. The company develops and manufactures a wide range of storage solutions for a variety of commercial and government business applications in the broadcast/post-production, graphic arts, prepress and multimedia markets, and rugged environments. The product family line includes removable storage products, and uncompressed digital video and real-time disk recorders.