Alfa-Bank Delivers Innovation in Russia's Banking System Using MIMIX.

High Availability Software Provides 24/7 Business Continuity for Alfa-Bank's Advanced Delivery Channels

OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. -- Lakeview Technology, the information availability company, today announced that one of Russia's largest privately owned banks, Alfa-Bank, implemented MIMIX ha1 for i5/OS to successfully deliver business continuity and IT resiliency across all their advanced delivery channels, keeping them at the technological forefront of Russia's banking industry.

Alfa-Bank is one of the biggest and most reputable banks in Russia, and heads the list of the "best IT banks in Russia"(1) for three consecutive years. The bank has ATMs, internet banking and advanced delivery channels across many locations and many time zones, all available 24/7 to meet the evolving demands of Russian consumers.

The primary driver that caused the bank to look for a high availability business continuity solution was that at the end of every day, they carry out "end of day" procedures, placing enormous demand on Alfa-Bank's complex IT infrastructure. Without MIMIX, their ATMs and internet banking needed to come offline while Alfa-Bank completed daily backups and other important procedures. Customers were unable to access accounts or conduct necessary transactions. Now, with planned switching thanks to MIMIX, Alfa-Bank can successfully manage the demand and switch to a backup server. Business continuity is preserved.

MIMIX high availability software provides advanced protection for important applications and data on a switch-ready backup server in the event of unplanned downtime such as a power failure. In addition, MIMIX eliminates costly planned downtime caused by routine server maintenance or application upgrades by easily switching users to the backup server where they can continue working. Valuable business applications and data are protected and always accessible.

Alexander Trekin, Principal Consultant for Lakeview Technology explained, "As well as the 'end of day issues,' before MIMIX, the bank experienced downtime due to hardware failures and power outages, and required large windows of processing time for backup and maintenance. Many manual processes were cumbersome, resource intensive and could have left the door open for potential data discrepancies."

Trekin continued, "Alfa-Bank knew that to evolve and innovate at the forefront of technology, it required protecting their IT assets. They looked at a full spectrum of information availability solutions on various platforms, chose MIMIX ha1 high availability software from Lakeview Technology and implemented in partnership with IBM."

Alfa-Bank has two data centers that are several kilometers apart and recently upgraded to a high end, powerful IBM System i model 595 server. The bank uses the Misys Equation core banking application, and as part of the decision making process, took into account that MIMIX has proven interoperability with Misys.

Sergei Mednov, CIO of Alfa-Bank, said, "We liked the fact that Lakeview Technology and IBM have been partners for many years, and were able to pull projects together as a team rather than involve hardware, software, services and support separately." Mednov went on to say, "Our IT team found that MIMIX is easily implemented, has a proven integration with our chosen banking environment and is easy to manage day to day. This gives us a total trusted solution. Lakeview and IBM are highly respected, especially within the banking industry, which is why we ultimately selected this leading combination."

For more information about Alfa-Bank please visit www.alfa-bank.com. To know how MIMIX high availability, data protection and recovery solutions help organizations like Alfa-Bank, please visit www.lakeviewtech.com or contact your Lakeview Technology representative.

(1) This rating is the result of an annual study performed by CNews Analytics (CNA), an independent Russian research group focused on IT and telecommunication sectors in the country.

About Alfa-Bank

Alfa-Bank, one of Russia's largest privately owned banks, was founded in 1990 and is present in every key sector of the financial service industry, including corporate banking, retail banking, investment banking, trade finance, insurance and asset management.

Ranked among the most reliable and dynamically developing financial institutions that combine a thorough knowledge of the specific characteristics of the Russian market with the very highest Western standards, Alfa-Bank's branch network has grown to 121, including subsidiary banks in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Netherlands. In addition to banking, the Bank has regulated FSA and NASD brokerage subsidiaries located in London and New York.

Alfa-Bank is one of the few Russian domestic banks that operates under international auditing standards (PricewaterhouseCoopers -- since 1993). In 2005, total assets of Alfa-Bank and its subsidiaries grew to $9.8B, total equity increased to $855.8M, loan portfolio net of provisions increased to $5.7B. The net profit for a year 2005 was $180.6M. For more information, please visit www.alfa-bank.com.

About Lakeview Technology Inc.

Lakeview Technology is the information availability company, providing high availability, data protection and data management software solutions and services to businesses of all sizes. Lakeview's innovative technology ensures the availability of business information so customers can increase productivity, reduce costs, and satisfy service level and compliance requirements. Affordable and easy to use, Lakeview solutions support applications in i5/OS[R], Windows[R], UNIX[R] and Linux[R] operating environments. For more than 15 years, companies around the world have made Lakeview Technology the one to count on for information availability. For more information, please visit www.lakeviewtech.com.

[c]Copyright 2006 Lakeview Technology Inc. All Rights Reserved. MIMIX[R] is a trademark of Lakeview Technology. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective holders.