Avail Systems and IBM Announce Remarketing Agreement

BOULDER, Colo., September 1995 . . . Bringing enterprise class storage
management to today's PC networks, Avail Systems Corporation and IBM today
announced an agreement under which IBM will remarket and sell Avail's
NetSpace hierarchical storage-management (HSM) software for Novell
NetWare-based networks. In addition, Avail will provide a software link
between NetSpace and IBM's ADSTAR Distributed Storage Manager (ADSM)
enterprise data-management software, allowing NetSpace users to take
advantage of the broader platform support provided by ADSM.

The marketing agreement expands the two companies' current relationship.
Under terms of the agreement, IBM expects to begin selling NetSpace
through its direct marketing channel beginning in October 1995.

The addition of the software-based bridge between ADSM and NetSpace will
allow ADSM customers to extend HSM capabilities to systems where data is
actively maintained in file directories of NetWare networks. This
capability -- which will be available as an add-on Storage Capacity Kit
for NetSpace -- will make NetSpace the only PC-based HSM technology able
to utilize ADSM's robust, enterprise-wide storage capabilities.

"As PC networks and their data continue to play an ever-increasing role in
the enterprise, customers need a comprehensive solution to manage their
information," said Lynn Yates, IBM Storage System Division vice president,
software products. "Offering Avail's NetSpace to ADSM customers will
extend ADSM's powerful 'desktop-to-data center' data-management
capabilities to today's common networked environments -- providing the
most integrated and full-featured HSM solution offered today."

"Avail's sales channels are extensively broadened by this agreement," said
Robert S. Wight, president and CEO of Avail. "With our development of the
NetSpace-to-ADSM link, it made perfect sense for us to deepen our
relationship. We have found that a high percentage of our Fortune 1000
customers have already implemented ADSM as their choice enterprise backup
and storage-management solution. This agreement will enable us to reach
many more potential users."

ADSTAR DISTRIBUTED STORAGE MANAGER

ADSM is a client/server storage management product that provides
administrator-controlled, highly automated, centrally scheduled,
network-based backup and archive functions for workstations and LAN file
servers. It is an ideal backup and archiving solution for data that is
distributed across a wide range of platforms. Versions of the software are
available for use with servers running IBM's MVS, VM, VSE/ESA, AIX, OS/400
and OS/2 operating systems, as well as those from Hewlett Packard and Sun
Microsystems. The various versions support an even wider range of client
platforms.

HIERARCHICAL STORAGE MANAGEMENT

HSM automatically stores network data on specific storage peripherals
attached to the network. As network disk volumes fill with data, older,
less-used files are migrated to various storage devices (including disk
drives, optical jukeboxes and tape libraries) or to an ADSM storage pool
to reduce storage costs while maximizing data availability and
accessibility by end users. The HSM software transparently migrates and
retrieves stored files to and from the various storage devices or ADSM
pool while maintaining their directory entries on the server, "virtually"
expanding the network's storage capacity at a fraction of the cost of
adding disk capacity to individual servers.

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

The Avail NetSpace Storage Capacity Kit for IBM ADSM will be available in
October 1995 directly from Avail and IBM. Pricing information will be
announced later.

Avail was the first company to develop hierarchical storage management
software for Novell NetWare. Since the product's introduction in July
1993, Avail's software has received many accolades, including Computer
Technology Review's Reseller's Choice award and industry honors for
technical excellence and outstanding new storage product. Avail Systems
Corp., founded in 1991, is a privately held corporation whose investors
include the venture capital firms of Aweida Ventures, Euclid Partners and
Hambrecht & Quist.

IBM is the world's largest supplier of computer storage products. Through
its Storage Systems Division, the company provides a full line of storage
solutions for IBM computing systems, for OEMs and for commercial
distribution. Its offerings include disk drives, arrays and subsystems;
magnetic tape drives, subsystems and automated libraries; optical
libraries; storage controllers; and related storage management software.
For over 20 years, IBM has been a leader in developing storage management
software for mainframe environments. With its family of ADSM products, IBM
brings this leadership software to a wide variety of open systems
client-server environments.
 
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