Data Return Announces Scalability Center; State-of-The-Art Pre-Production Testing Facility Helps Customers Optimize e-Business Applications.

Business/Technology Editors

DALLAS, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 19, 2000

Data Return Corporation (Nasdaq: DRTN), a leading global provider of managed hosting services for the Microsoft Windows 2000 platform, today announced the introduction of Scalability Center, a new state-of-the-art facility that lets customers rigorously test the design and performance of large, complex e-business applications before deploying them on the Internet. By reducing downtime, companies can save millions of dollars in potentially lost revenue, while significantly improving customer loyalty and reputation in a highly competitive e-marketplace. Data Return's Scalability Center lets developers test their applications with a simulated load of up to 100,000 concurrent user sessions per second, or up to 10.8 billion distributed transaction requests per day.

"Most companies lack the resources and expertise necessary to prove real-world viability before moving an application into a production environment," said Sunny C. Vanderbeck, Data Return chairman and CEO. "With Scalability Center, we can now offer our customers proactive, preventive measures to ensure the successful integration of their applications within Data Return's system architecture. Scalability Center will continue to become more important to Data Return customers as they develop increasingly complex, mission-critical Web applications."

Data Return's Scalability Center includes three unique lab facilities: Systems Architecture Lab, Test Lab, and Stress Lab. Specially trained staff at each lab help customers determine the viability of an application design, maximize system thresholds, and enable capacity planning and optimize applications for seamless migration from a staging platform to a full-production hosting environment.

K.C. Hildreth, CTO of GoldPocket Interactive, was one of the first customers to experience Data Return's Scalability Center. During pre-event testing of the EventMatrix(TM) application, which runs GoldPocket's weekly interactive online events, Data Return performed tests to measure the application's ability to handle up to 10 million simulated hits per hour per Compaq 8500 server.

"Data Return's ability to test EventMatrix in a pre-production environment ensured the successful launch of GoldPocket.com," said Hildreth. "Given the size of our deployment, this measurement equates to over half a billion hits per hour, thereby giving GoldPocket's architecture by far the largest capacity ever deployed on the Internet."

Alibre, Inc., the first ASP to offer a collaborative mechanical design solution over the Internet, is also taking advantage of Scalability Center labs. Steve Emmons, vice president of development for Alibre, stated, "As we continue to take our online collaborative mechanical design service to increasingly complex levels, it is essential we have a way to test our next revision before we release it to the market. The Scalability Center will afford Alibre the opportunity to ensure our application will meet the performance levels it was designed for within Data Return's network environment."

"Data Return continues to prove the scalability of the Windows 2000 platform with innovative service offerings such as Scalability Center," said Mark Chestnut, director of ISP/ASP Business Development, Microsoft Corp. "Data Return's superior platform architecture, combined with best-of-class managed services, enables customers to maximize the capabilities of the Windows 2000 platform for their critical e-business applications."

Availability

The Scalability Center is available immediately to customers needing a pre-production testing facility. For more information about Scalability Center, please call Data Return Sales at [phone].

About Data Return

Managing over 1,600 applications for more than 1,000 companies worldwide, Data Return (Nasdaq: DRTN) is a leading provider of advanced managed hosting services based on Microsoft technologies. Data Return customers include Microsoft, Compaq Computer Corporation, Fossil, Alibre, Executive Software, PlanetOutdoors.com, Berlitz Languages, Sensormatic Electronics, Boeing Company and First USA Bank. Data Return also is a full-service Application Infrastructure Provider (AIP) that is enabling Independent Software Vendors to rapidly become Application Service Providers (ASPs). Strategic partners and equity shareholders in Data Return include Microsoft, Compaq Computer Corporation, and Level 3 Communications. For more information, visit www.datareturn.com.

This press release contains forward-looking information. Actual results may differ materially due to a number of risks, including changes in external competitive market factors, changes in or an inability to execute Data Return's business strategy, unanticipated changes in the hosting industry, the economy in general and changes in the use of the Internet. Data Return cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. The matters discussed in this press release also involve risks and uncertainties summarized under the heading "Risk Factors" in Data Return's Prospectus dated October 27, 1999 and are updated from time to time through the filing of reports and registration statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Data Return does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

Data Return is trademark of Data Return Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.