@Home standardizes on Tivoli Systems software for managing nationwide server network; TME 10 chosen over solutions from computer associates, others.

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 12, 1996-- Tivoli Systems Inc. announced today that @Home Corp. has chosen TME 10 (Tivoli Management Environment) for systems management of the @Home Network, a new cable-based nationwide network that will offer Internet services and interactive multimedia content at unprecedented speeds.

The sale, valued at $1.5 million over the next three years, includes a variety of Tivoli software products and consulting services, including TME 10 Software Distribution, TME 10 Distributed Monitoring, TME 10 Net.Commander, TME 10 Enterprise Console, TME 10 Inventory, TME 10 Application Development Environment and Tivoli/Plus integration modules for third-party tools.

@Home Network connects personal computer users to the Internet and interactive content using the nation's existing cable infrastructure and high-speed cable modems. As a result, @Home Network expects to deliver significant increases in speed and multimedia content far beyond what's possible with today's traditional Internet connections. @Home Corporation began a nationwide rollout of the @Home Network today through its cable partners, Tele-Communications, ComCast Corporation and Cox Corporation.

@Home Corporation will use the TME 10 product suite to manage a nationwide UNIX server network of high-performance Sun Microsystems and Silicon Graphics workstations, which runs the @Home Network. Home's three-year plan calls for deployment of more than 1,400 servers.

@Home selected TME 10 after an extensive evaluation of various management solutions, including Computer Associates' CA-UniCenter and various point products. Key factors in @Home's decision were TME 10's automated, intelligent and secure approach to distributed systems management, as well as its open architecture, ease of use, flexibility, multiplatform support and scalability.

"Tivoli is really a best-in-class solution. It isn't just a tool. It gives us a whole management architecture that fits beautifully into our network, and the plug-in-and-play way it handles management applications really suits our business. @Home Network would not be possible without distributed computers, and managing the distributed computers would not be possible without TME 10," says Milo Medin, @Home's vice president of networks and a former developer of advanced networks for NASA.

"Years ago, when we were first building the Tivoli Management Environment, we dreamed about helping customers such as @Home," said Frank Moss, Tivoli's president and chief executive officer. "@Home's server network is a highly sophisticated application of distributed technology. We built TME 10 to help organizations lower the cost and complexity of managing distributed computers. This is an important business benefit to all our customers, but to @Home, it's a crucial benefit. Without distributed management, @Home Network wouldn't be possible. So we're thrilled to be an essential part of a network that will offer Internet users a wide variety of unique services at unprecedented speeds."

@Home Corp. enables broadband delivery of Internet and interactive services by building a high degree of intelligence into the network. The company's distributed network of high-performance servers brings data closer to users, and uses caching, replication and other advanced data technologies to make multimedia information more accessible to users. The server network includes regional data centers with high-availability servers that handle mail, news, HTTP requests and directory services, plus "headend" points that tie each local community into the network, which contain "proxy" or caching servers. The typical high-availability server configuration involves two independent synchronized servers configured so that if one goes down, the other immediately takes over, eliminating any service interruption for customers.

"General Patton said, `Never pay for the same ground twice.' We say, `Never move the same data twice,'" explained Medin. "Once someone in Fremont, California, accesses a home page, it goes into a cache. The next time someone accesses the page, they get it from our server, and not by traveling around the continent on the Internet." As a result, @Home's intelligent network can move data at dramatically faster speeds than normal telephone wires and even ISDN lines -- eliminating the connection problems and bandwidth constraints that irk online users today.

Using TME 10, @Home has built a highly secure, highly automated centralized management infrastructure into its network. The TME 10 solution provides "lights out administration" of the server network, enabling a handful of systems management staff to run the entire network remotely from company headquarters in Mountain View, California.

For example, @Home uses TME 10 Software Distribution to rapidly build and distribute standard proxy server configurations to all headend servers simultaneously, without logging on to each individual machine. The company uses TME 10 Software Distribution to rapidly distribute and test new versions of the company's proprietary software and TME 10 Net.Commander and Software Distribution to manage all caching operations and to post Web page content to the regional servers. @Home also uses TME 10 Software Distribution and the Tivoli Plus integration module for Scopus Technology, a third-party help desk application, to extract IP address information and other technical data about new customer accounts from a distributed customer database and get it back to the servers in the form of updated configuration files.

TME 10 Distributed Monitoring helps @Home monitor key networking processes and parameters on all the servers, including disk space, news processes, HTTP processes and mail processes. Once a monitor is built using TME 10, it runs independently. If a process goes down, the monitor sends an alert or an alarm to an administrator in the Network Operations Center in Mountain View.

"TME 10 is the way we keep everything in synch, and it enables us to do it securely and reliably," says Medin. "Tivoli has given us an outstanding architecture for configuration and change control, because it's highly automated and creates an excellent audit trail." TME 10 is already providing significant savings and operational benefits for @Home: Configuration updates on hundreds of servers in less than one hour, centralized command and control of the nationwide server network using a small staff of IT professionals, fully automated deployment and monitoring of UNIX servers, fast setup of new customer accounts, rapid deployment and refreshing of Web content on caching servers, and automatic synchronization of interdependent servers.

"TME 10 is a big part of our strong value proposition for partners and customers," said Medin. "TME 10 provides us with two important competitive advantages. First, it lets us take the expertise of a small group of very smart systems people who are really sharp at their jobs, and leverage it across our network. This means that our cable partners don't have to have people on site who know how to manage our systems. Second, we can bring new customers, servers and infrastructure components online much more quickly."

Home Corp.

Based in Mountain View, Calif., the @Home Corp. was formed in 1995. Investors in the company include Tele-Communications, Comcast Corp., Cox Communications, and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The company distributes high-speed, interactive services to residences, businesses and schools using the cable industry's hybrid, fiber-coaxial cable distribution architecture. To create rich new multimedia content that takes advantage of @Home Network's broad bandwidth capabilities, @Home has teamed up with more than 60 different partners, including ESPN, Knight-Ridder, The New York Times and Ziff-Davis Publishing.

Tivoli Systems Inc.

Tivoli Systems Inc., an IBM company, provides an open, end-to-end management solution from mainframes to the desktop, spanning network and systems management. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, Tivoli distributes its products worldwide through a network of domestic and international sales offices, systems integrators, resellers and IBM sales channels. For more information about Tivoli Systems and its products, visit its World Wide Web site at http://www.tivoli.com.

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Tivoli Management Environment, TME 10, TME 10 Software Distribution, TME 10 Distributed Monitoring, TME 10 Enterprise Console, TME 10 Net.Commander, TME 10 Inventory and Tivoli/Plus are trademarks of Tivoli Systems, an IBM company. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

CONTACT: Tivoli Systems Inc.

Claire Campbell, 512/436-8311

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@Home Corp.

Amy Bonetti, 415/944-7264

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