ADIC Expands Alerting Functions in New Intelligent Library Platform; Scalar i2000 Reports Drive-Media Status; Lays Foundation for Future Disk-Tape Solutions.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

REDMOND, Wash.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 6, 2003

Advanced Digital Information Corporation (Nasdaq:ADIC), leading supplier of Intelligent Storage(TM) solutions for the open system market, announced today that the company has expanded the monitoring and alerting capabilities in its Scalar i2000 library to further reduce end users' overall system ownership costs, improve diagnostics, and reduce the need for service. The new capabilities gather and analyze drive and media status information, provide users with detailed diagnostic information, and turn the data into email or pager alerts for IT administrators and the library service team.

The new function helps users and service personnel more easily differentiate between drive and media faults, and it will provide a mechanism to actively warn users when supported media is approaching the end of its active life. The new, intelligent capabilities can help users to reduce the need for service calls, shorten system down-time, and better manage use of their storage resources to reduce overall costs.

"A significant amount of information is potentially available about drives and media from internal sensors, but there hasn't been a good way of capturing it, making sense out of it, or using it for decision making," said Lisa Clarke, ADIC Vice President of Global Services. "ADIC has now changed that with the Scalar i2000. We have linked the status data to our proactive alerting system so that users and service personnel can be notified directly when media is bad, for example. And we present all the information about the library system -- including drives and media -- through a single management interface to make diagnostics and service easier."

The new capabilities also create a management environment that will enable the development of systems that combine disk and tape as part of a single backup process. "Most libraries force users to try to extract drive and media information from logs buried in their backup application," explained Scott Roza, ADIC Vice President of North American Storage Products. "Creating self-managing libraries that present that data directly is a much better approach -- analogous to the monitoring systems common today in disk subsystems. This kind of advanced function will be especially important as we boost the performance and overall reliability of backup by integrating a disk layer between the library and backup software."

ADIC's Scalar i2000 automated library is the first product to incorporate ADIC's intelligent iPlatform(TM) architecture. The iPlatform integrates key backup management functions and offers built-in support for a broad range of data center requirements while reducing the need for external servers, applications, and management activities.

Functions integrated within Scalar i2000 models include native partitioning of a single library into multiple logical libraries, mixed media capability, performance monitoring, proactive system readiness and path verification checks, path fail-over, performance optimization, self-guided diagnostics, and policy-based user alerts that are sent over standard email and pager networks. The iPlatform's server-class embedded controller displays real-time backup performance data and gathers information to be used for future predictive analysis. It also incorporates a unique capacity-on-demand capability, allowing users to expand capacity from 100 to over 2200 cartridges, paying for added capacity only as they use it.

About ADIC

Advanced Digital Information Corporation (Nasdaq:ADIC) is a leading provider of Intelligent Storage(TM) solutions to the open systems marketplace. ADIC(R) is the world's largest supplier of automated tape systems using the drive technologies most often employed for backing up open system, client-server networks.(1) The Company's data management software and storage networking appliances provide IT managers innovative tools for storing, managing and protecting their most valuable digital assets in a variety of disk and tape environments. ADIC storage products are available through a worldwide sales force and a global network of resellers and OEMs, including Cray, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun. For more information, visit www.adic.com.

(1) Capacity assumes average 2:1 compression. Market position from : IDC 2001 worldwide revenue and unit market share data for all automated systems using DLT, SDLT, LTO, 8mm or AIT drives; and Gartner Dataquest, Tape Automation Systems Market Shares, 2002, F. Yale, April 2003. ADIC and Scalar are registered trademarks and iPlatform and Intelligent Storage are trademarks of Advanced Digital Information Corporation. All other trade or service marks mentioned in this document should be considered the property of their respective owners.