Raritan Outperforms Avocent in Independent Test Conducted by The Tolly Group

Raritan Outperforms Avocent in Independent Test Conducted by The Tolly Group

– Raritan’s Paragon II Delivers Best Overall KVM Video Performance –

Gurgaon (October 26th, 2006) – Raritan, a leading provider of solutions to simplify IT operations, today announced that in an independent performance test conducted by The Tolly Group, its Paragon® II enterprise-class KVM switch performed better than Avocent’s AMX switch.

Test results show that “Paragon II delivers an overall better video quality measured in terms of video bandwidth, color gradients, jitter and distortion/ghosting compared to the Avocent solution tested,” according to The Tolly Group, an influential testing validation firm. In addition, “the Paragon II maintains superior video quality over the longest cable length, and highest resolution compared to the Avocent solution.” For the complete test report, please visit www.ParagonVideoQuality.com.

The test focused on video quality because it is one of the top KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) requirements of end users managing data center servers from various distances. Video quality is also of utmost importance to end users accessing high-resolution video applications, such as broadcast production and CAD/CAM, running on servers located in centralized facilities.

“With the high use of KVM-based remote solutions to access and manage servers, end users are demanding solutions that can handle extremely high resolution video and graphics,” said Sanjay Motwani, Country Manager, Raritan India. “The last thing users, who work in front of screens for hours, want is to strain their eyes by viewing distortion and ghosting.”

The Raritan and Avocent solutions – tested in The Tolly Group’s Boca Raton, Fla., facilities – provide analog KVM over unshielded twisted pair cable, and can support up to four users and 42 servers. The products tested were: Raritan’s Paragon II UMT 442 switch with the Paragon II Enhanced User Station, and Avocent’s AMX5020 switch with the AMX5130 Enhanced User Station.

Each KVM solution was evaluated by an independent video quality subject matter expert in four key areas — video bandwidth, color gradients and sharpness, jitter and distortion, and ghosting (hazy outline of text shapes around letters) and reflection (hazy outline of text shapes inside letters). In addition, the tests were conducted over cable lengths of 100, 300, 600 and 1,000 feet.

“Raritan has raised the bar by delivering KVM solutions that offer high-performance and enterprise-class features necessary for supporting today’s IT infrastructures,” said Kevin Tolly, President, CEO and founder of The Tolly Group. “Paragon II clearly excels in video quality for the majority of scenarios tested from 100 to 1,000 feet.”

“It’s great to have an independent third party verify the outstanding performance that Paragon II delivers,” adds Raritan’s Peter Suriani, Product Management Director . “Our analog product family has been a winner with wide market acceptance, starting with our first Paragon product. We continue to invest in R&D in order to provide customers with the industry’s best video quality, manageability, response and security. We provide, for example, automatic and manual skew compensation to allow the end user to fine tune video adjustments.”

Having both automatic and manual video tuning capabilities is an industry first. With automatic tuning, administrators can save setup time – especially when managing large numbers of servers. With the manual tuning capability, the video signal can be fine tuned for quality as well as individual preferences for viewing comfort. In addition, video settings can be saved to a database for subsequent sessions.

Based on an innovative modular and stackable architecture, Paragon II provides the industry’s highest port density. In addition to supporting server expansion, stacking units simplify cabling between ‘tiers’ by replacing pass-through cables with a single expansion cable. These units save in rack space and HVAC costs.

About The Tolly Group
The Tolly Group, an independent testing and strategic consulting organization based in Boca Raton, Fla., offers a full range of services designed to furnish both the vendor and end-user communities with authoritative and unbiased information. Additionally, The Tolly Group is recognized worldwide for its expertise in assessing leading-edge technologies. For more information on The Tolly Group’s services, visit its Web site at http://www.tolly.com, e-mail info {at} tolly(.)com, call (561) 391-5610, or fax (561) 391-5810.

About Raritan ( Raritan.co.in)

Raritan, based in Somerset, N.J., is a leading provider of products for managing IT equipment and the mission-critical applications and services that run on it. Raritan’s highly reliable and responsive IT management solutions – based on KVM (Keyboard, Video, Mouse) switches, serial console servers, management software and remote connectivity products – enable companies to proactively monitor and manage system health and vulnerabilities, as well as troubleshoot, access and repair faults from anywhere, at anytime. This simplifies and accelerates IT management work processes – both in data centers and at remote branch offices – improving service uptime and staff productivity. Raritan’s solutions are used to manage more than 50,000 data centers and other IT sites around the world. Raritan also serves the OEM market by developing advanced, hardware-based, remote-management components based on digital KVM-over-IP and IPMI technologies. Founded in 1985, Raritan today has 38 offices worldwide, and its products are distributed in 76 countries. For more information, please visit Raritan.co.in.

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