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Friday: April 3, 2009

Editorial Summary:

• An Aptio® 4.X iSCSI Initiator can boot/install any UEFI compliant operating system (OS) to an iSCSI target storage, including UEFI-compliant versions of Windows, Linux or other software.
• Aptio® iSCSI drivers are compatible with most legacy network cards with Legacy UNDI option ROMs, and complement it with iSCSI boot capability for UEFI compliant OSs

Atlanta, GA – American Megatrends (AMI) is pleased to announce that the Aptio® UEFI Firmware provides iSCSI Boot support for initialization of diskless servers and blades with multiple Operating Systems stored on an iSCSI Storage Area Network.

Servers featuring iSCSI boot do not require a local hard disk for storing the OS, which they retrieve from iSCSI SAN storage; this helps to increase speed, reduce costs and augment manageability of servers and blades populating big server farms or datacenters with features such as virtualization and disaster recovery.

Support for iSCSI technology at the UEFI BIOS level provides a host of benefits to the datacenter:

• Contributes to eliminate the need for expensive Host Bus Adapters (HBAs), allowing use of inexpensive standard Network Card Interfaces (NICs) and augment LAN on Motherboard (LOM) server ports
• Promotes use of diskless servers and blades, for conspicuous hardware and maintenance savings
• Increases the SAN speed and flexibility
• Simplifies software management: when a server boots from the SAN, it automatically acquires the latest upgrades and fixes
• Facilitates recovery in case of server failure; the use of a SAN, in turn, boosts disaster recovery with data duplication and center dissemination

About AMI: Founded in 1985 and known worldwide for AMIBIOS®, American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) supplies state-of-the-art hardware, software, and utilities to today's high-tech manufacturers. AMI’s innovative Aptio™ solution for UEFI, modular AMIBIOS8, high quality StorTrends® IP-SAN, NAS, and Storage Management software solutions, along with MegaRAC® remote server management, KVM over IP, IPMI 2.0 firmware and high-density motherboards continue to garner industry acclaim and awards around the world. In line with the diversity of its technology and product line, AMI is a member of a number of industry associations and standards groups, such as the Intel® Embedded and Communications Alliance, a community of communications and embedded developers and solution providers, and a sponsor member of the Server Systems Infrastructure Forum (SSI), a special interest group (SIG) dedicated to promoting industry standards for the design and management of blade servers. Headquartered in Atlanta, AMI has locations in the U.S., China, Germany, India, Japan, Korea and Taiwan to better serve its customers.

For more information on AMI, its products or services, call 1-800-U-BUY-AMI or visitwww.ami.com.

Statement of Liability: © 2009 American Megatrends Inc. Product specifications are subject to change without notice. Products mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. All rights reserved. No warranties are made, either express or implied, with regard to the contents of this work, its merchantability or fitness for a particular use. This publication contains proprietary information, which is protected by copyright. American Megatrends reserves the right to update, change and/or modify this product at anytime.

News Source : American Megatrends Announces iSCSI Boot Support in Aptio® 4.x UEFI BIOS Firmware