REDWOOD CITY, CA--(Marketwired - May 30, 2013) - Coraid®, a leading provider of Ethernet storage solutions, today announced that it has contributed major updates to the open-source software initiator for ATA-over-Ethernet (AoE) in the Linux kernel. The software driver allows any Linux server to serve as a host for an AoE-based storage target with no additional installation required. The latest changes, which deliver a significant boost in storage performance, scalability and stability, were committed to the Linux kernel through kernel.org operated by the Linux Kernel Organization.

SUSE® is the first Linux provider to incorporate the latest updates into their distribution. SUSE also integrated the OpenStack Cinder drivers for AoE and Coraid EtherCloud™ that Coraid recently contributed to the Grizzly release of OpenStack. These drivers will allow public, private and hybrid OpenStack-based clouds to seamlessly integrate with Coraid's EtherDrive® and EtherCloud platforms to deliver scalable, automated storage services.

Coraid started out in the Linux and HPC markets, and contributed its first AoE driver to the Linux kernel in 2005. AoE provides a massively parallel, connectionless data fabric between servers and storage, and Coraid's Virtual DAS (VDAS) driver technology virtualizes all shared storage to appear as local drives. By virtually eliminating the management complexity that exists in today's Fibre Channel and iSCSI environments while providing low-latency, high-throughput data access, AoE offers simplicity, scalability and flexibility in virtualized and cloud environments.

"Linux and OpenStack have become the platforms of choice for many cloud builders today," said Kevin Brown, CEO of Coraid. "The connectionless architecture of Ethernet SAN technology is an ideal match for cloud environments that require on-demand scalability and flexibility in the infrastructure. With this update, cloud builders can use the software driver in the Linux kernel to deploy clouds using Coraid EtherDrive Ethernet storage."

"SUSE and Coraid both believe in the power of open-source platforms such as Linux and OpenStack in building scalable elastic private and public clouds. We are committed to creating an easy-to-deploy and manage cloud infrastructure solution," said Michael Miller, vice president of global alliances and marketing, SUSE. "We incorporated the latest updates from Coraid to allow our mutual customers to gain the full benefit of Ethernet storage."

The new AoE driver is generally available in the Linux kernel version 3.8. Coraid is also working with other Linux distributions to accelerate availability of the driver in these distributions that are widely used in the enterprise market. The OpenStack drivers will be available in the next SUSE Cloud release in Q4, 2013.

About Coraid
Coraid redefines software-defined storage with its breakthrough line of EtherDrive and EtherCloud solutions. Coraid delivers scale-out performance, Ethernet simplicity, and an elastic storage architecture to handle massive data growth. Designed from the ground up for virtualization and cloud architectures, Coraid's platform has been deployed by more than 1,700 customers worldwide. For more information, visit www.coraid.com or follow Coraid on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Coraid or LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/companies/Coraid.

About SUSE
SUSE®, a pioneer in open source software, provides reliable, interoperable Linux and cloud infrastructure solutions that give enterprises greater control and flexibility. More than 20 years of engineering excellence, exceptional service and an unrivaled partner ecosystem power the products and support that help our customers manage complexity, reduce cost, and confidently deliver mission-critical services. The lasting relationships we build allow us to adapt and deliver the smarter innovation they need to succeed -- today and tomorrow. For more information, visit us at www.suse.com.

Coraid and EtherDrive are registered trademarks of Coraid Inc. EtherCloud, CorOS, Zero Hour Support, EtherFlash, Yunteq, and Scale-Out Virtual Storage are trademarks of Coraid, Inc. All other marks referenced are the property of their respective owners.