Dot Hill Secures Six New Patents, Bolstering Heritage as a Trailblazer in Storage Innovation
June 24 2009 - 7:55AM
PR Newswire (US)
CARLSBAD, Calif., June 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Dot Hill
Systems Corp. (NASDAQ:HILL), a world-class provider of entry-level
and midrange storage solutions for OEMs and system integrators
(SIs), today demonstrated its continued focus on technology
innovation, with the announcement of six new patents granted by the
United States Patent and Trademark Office. Developed by Dot Hill's
Longmont, Colo. engineering team, these latest innovations are part
of the company's growing patent portfolio. Dot Hill has been
awarded 48 patents to date. Dot Hill's dedication to technology
helps give its growing list of OEMs a competitive edge in
delivering innovative high performance storage solutions. The
newest patents granted to Dot Hill include: -- U.S. patent
7,536,495 "Certified memory-to-memory data transfer between
active-active RAID controllers" -- This patent provides for
improved communication efficiency and reliability between redundant
RAID controllers. By using a robust, efficient protocol for
transferring data and controlling information, this innovation
eliminates delays in write-cache synchronization and preserves CPU
processing bandwidth for other tasks. -- U.S. Patent 7,536,506
"RAID controller using capacitor energy source to flush volatile
cache data to non-volatile memory during main power outage" -- This
invention provides a super capacitor energy source for RAID
controllers. The super capacitor stores sufficient energy to
guarantee that volatile write-data is safely transferred to
non-volatile memory in the event that the main power is lost. Once
the data is stored in the non-volatile memory, the RAID controller
may remain unpowered indefinitely without losing any data. Super
capacitor technology has significant advantages over older battery
technologies, such as improved energy density, faster charge time,
and significantly longer shelf life. -- U.S. Patent 7,536,508
"System and method for sharing SATA drives in an active-active RAID
controller system" -- This innovation provides a method for
efficiently sharing Serial ATA (SATA) drives in an active-active
RAID system including one or more Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
expanders and a communications link between the first and second
RAID controllers. An ownership protocol between redundant RAID
controllers communicates ownership status and changes for each SATA
drive in the RAID system. In the event of a failure by a redundant
RAID controller, ownership is seamlessly transferred to another
RAID controller. -- U.S. Patent 7,536,584 "Fault-isolating SAS
Expander" -- This invention provides an intelligent Serial Attached
SCSI (SAS) expander that automatically detects faulty
communications on one of its links and isolates the fault by
disabling a physical interface within the SAS expander. Upon
reporting the disablement, the intelligent SAS expander recovers by
taking corrective action and re-enabling the physical interface. --
U.S. Patent 7,543,096 "Safe message transfers on PCI-Express link
from RAID controller to receiver-programmable window of partner
RAID controller CPU memory" - This patent provides for reliable
intercommunication between redundant RAID controllers in a
high-availability storage system to ensure the correct user-data is
written to the disk drives. A RAID controller defines a window in
the memory of a redundant RAID controller for writing information,
and if any write-addresses are outside the specified window, the
receiving controller will not write the data. This can prevent
inadvertent data corruption in RAID controller memory by not
allowing received data to overwrite unrelated data that needs to be
preserved. -- U.S. Patent 7,539,799 "Method and apparatus for
identifying enclosures and devices" --This invention provides
automatic assignment of unique IDs to enclosures that can be used
to identify and determine the exact location of the enclosure in
the data storage system. "Our Longmont, Colo., team continues to
expand its patent portfolio with technology innovations that we
believe translate to a competitive advantage for our OEMs and other
customers," said Jim Kuenzel, senior vice president of Engineering
for Dot Hill. "We continue to seek smart solutions to keep pace
with the ever-changing landscape of storage challenges faced by
OEMs, resellers and IT professionals." Dot Hill R/Evolution Storage
Architecture Gives OEMs a Competitive Advantage The highly modular,
highly dynamic Dot Hill R/Evolution Architecture is designed to
rapidly evolve and support OEM technology, enabling OEMs to quickly
achieve sustainable competitive advantage in the volume storage
market. The R/Evolution Architecture delivers the high levels of
performance, storage density, time-to-market leadership and -- most
importantly -- configuration flexibility required by volume storage
customers. Using modular and bladed components, the R/Evolution
Architecture provides OEMs with a "configure-to-product" model (not
just "configure-to-order") that lets them customize volume storage
market solutions quickly, easily and precisely. This unique model
revolutionizes how OEMs bring storage products to market by
ensuring opportunities for product differentiation, even between
different companies that simultaneously OEM products from Dot Hill.
About Dot Hill Delivering innovative technology and global support,
Dot Hill empowers the OEM community to bring unique storage
solutions to market, quickly, easily and cost-effectively. Offering
high performance and industry-leading uptime, Dot Hill's RAID
technology is the foundation for best-in-class storage solutions
offering enterprise-class security, availability and data
protection. The company's products are in use today by the world's
leading service and equipment providers, common carriers, advanced
technology and telecommunications companies as well as government
agencies. Dot Hill solutions are certified to meet rigorous
industry standards and military specifications, as well as RoHS and
WEEE international environmental standards. Headquartered in
Carlsbad, Calif., Dot Hill has offices and/or representatives in
China, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States. For
more information, visit us at http://www.dothill.com/. HILL-G
Certain statements contained in this press release regarding
matters that are not historical fact are "forward-looking
statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act. Because such statements are subject to risks and
uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those
expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements
include the availability and performance of current or future Dot
Hill product features based on the patented technology described in
this press release, any competitive advantage that the patent
technology provides to Dot Hill, any positive effect on Dot Hill's
financial results due to the issuance of a Dot Hill patent, and Dot
Hill's ability to continue to receive patent protection on current
or future technology. The risks that contribute to the uncertain
nature of the forward-looking statements include: any unforeseen
technological, intellectual property, supply or engineering issues,
and changing customer preferences. However, there are many other
risks not listed here that may affect the future business of Dot
Hill, as well as the forward-looking statements contained herein.
To learn about such risks and uncertainties, you should read the
risk factors set forth in Dot Hill's public filings with the SEC,
including the Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q most recently filed by Dot
Hill. All forward-looking statements contained in this press
release speak only as the date on which they were made. Dot Hill
undertakes no obligation to update such statements to reflect later
events or circumstances. DATASOURCE: Dot Hill Systems Corp.
CONTACT: Erin Lutz of Lutz PR, +1-949-293-1055, , for Dot Hill
Systems Corp.; or Ruth Macdonald, Marketing Communications Manager
of Dot Hill Systems Corp., +1-720-839-6614, Web Site:
http://www.dothill.com/
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