Bus-Tech and Compaq Announces an Enterprise Wide Data Sharing Solution; Joint Solution Will Tightly Couple IBM Mainframes to Compaq Servers for High-Speed, Low-Cost Data Migration.

BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 1999--Bus-Tech, Inc.(tm), a leading provider of data center connectivity solutions, announces a partnership with Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE:CPQ), the leader of open and industry-standard storage, for IBM mainframe connectivity. This partnership extends Compaq's ability to provide storage solutions for heterogeneous computing and managing enterprise wide data requirements.

The DataBlaster products fill the need for high-speed bulk file transfer from IBM and IBM compatible mainframes to open client/server systems such as the Compaq ProLiant or Alpha. These products can run industry-standard Operating Systems such as NT, UNIX or NetWare. The ultra high-speed transfer capabilities of the DataBlaster, coupled with high-performance Compaq Servers, enables users to cost effectively reposition expensive mainframe processing while completely avoiding the protocol overhead of SNA or TCP/IP.

May & Speh/Acxiom of Conway, AR, one of the nations largest providers of data mining services is currently using over 20 DataBlasters to connect IBM mainframes to Compaq Alpha servers. Doug O'Leary of May & Speh stated "When populating our data marts, it is not unusual for us to migrate 300GBs of data from our mainframe to our UNIX platforms. By utilizing the DataBlaster, we can accomplish this download between 5 and 8 hours. Best estimates for our FDDI network is 5 days!"

Compaq Storageworks, currently the industry's leading supplier of storage products, announced in September a roadmap that promised to deliver storage solutions in three key industry segments server storage, multi-vendor storage, and business critical storage. This announcement follows that roadmap in the business critical segment. Many large customers have business critical needs to move and manage vast amounts of IBM mainframe resident data. Data is growing at exponential rates and the time windows to move that data for analysis and archiving are shrinking. By collaborating with Bus-Tech, Compaq is providing a lightning fast data highway between its servers and IBM S/390 mainframes. Customers will now be able to deploy applications like data warehousing, data mining and enterprise wide backup and restore of server data.

"This announcement is exciting for us and our customers", stated Robert Nicewicz, President of Bus-Tech, Inc. "To have the industry's largest supplier of NT servers endorse the DataBlaster technology means that now customers will have even easier access to this simple, secure and cost effective way of moving and managing enterprise data."

The DataBlaster can support two mainframe channel attachments and up to four Ultrawide SCSI interfaces. The mainframe channel interfaces can be either the 17Mbytes/sec. (i.e., 136Mbps) ESCON, or the 4.5Mbytes/sec. (i.e., 36 Mbps) Bus-and-Tag. On the Ultrawide SCSI side, DataBlaster works at 40Mbytes/sec. (i.e., 320Mbps). Though mainly used with high-end UNIX platforms for data mining applications, the DataBlaster can also be used with any other PC, workstation, mini-computer or RISC-based "server".

The Datablaster is available now and is priced starting at $8,000. Pricing is dependent on configuration.

Bus-Tech, Inc. is the industry's leading provider of state-of-the-art connectivity solutions for the data center. The company's powerful suite of Intranet-to-Mainframe and data movement solutions satisfy even the most rugged demands of data processing professionals for high-bandwidth, high-performance connectivity. With more than 14,000 installed sites worldwide, Bus-Tech is a recognized leader in the interconnect market. Headquartered in Burlington, MA, the company is privately held with locations around the world. For more information about Bus-Tech and its products, please visit the Bus-Tech World Wide Web site at http://www.bustech.com, send email to [e-mail], or call 800-284-3172 or 781-272-8200.

Bus-Tech is a registered trademark of Bus-Tech, Inc. Compaq (NYSE:CPQ), Registered U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. IBM, S/390 and ESCON are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM). Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies.