Evidian First to Introduce Complete 24x7 Software Solution for e-Business Applications: SafeKit.

Business/Technology Editors

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BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 11, 2000

Downloadable from www.Evidian.com, SafeKit provides industry's first

simple, seamless load balancing and fail-over solution for

availability and scalability needs of e-business applications

Responding to market demands for 24x7 high availability (HA) of e-business applications, Evidian, a leading vendor of secure e-infrastructure management software, today announced SafeKit(R), a software solution that allows enterprise to ensure load balancing and fail-over for their Internet and traditional applications through uniquely simple, easy to use software. With no need for dedicated hardware, BullSoft's SafeKit bundles critical functions that are essential to enterprises who want to deliver better quality of service to their customers while managing e-business growth at a reduced cost of ownership.

The new software addresses the challenges of e-enablers, ISVs, dot coms and "brick-and-click" companies who need to provide continuous and responsive service over the Internet or on traditional client-server applications. At a time when e-business activity is increasing but market dynamics are highly volatile, applications must not only ensure 24x7 service, but be able to handle peak load and seamlessly grow with customers demand.

"Availability and scalability are among the most pressing challenges today for e-business," said Henry Ancona, president and CEO of Evidian. "With millions of users going online worldwide around the clock and exponential e-business growth, competition is just a click away. We designed SafeKit to provide unsurpassed high availability capabilities in a very simple, flexible and software-only way."

SafeKit Makes HA Practical for e-business

SafeKit seamlessly integrates load balancing and fail-over management software technologies to provide a uniquely comprehensive solution that helps ensure maximum service performance, scalability and 24x7 availability of Internet and enterprise applications.

Using a patented single virtual IP address mechanism, SafeKit allows customers to automatically distribute and balance application load on as many servers as needed. Should any of the servers have to be stopped or fail for any reason (e.g., software, human or hardware), the remaining servers automatically assume the whole traffic and processing load in less than 3 seconds, typically before end users notice any disruption.

SafeKit's real time file mirroring instantly handles fail-over of transactional servers, such as databases, across any LAN or WAN network. All of this is transparent to end users, who see no difference in interacting with applications; or to IT administrators; as SafeKit adds a mere five percent to total system overhead.

"Until now, no approach has provided a seamless answer to application availability and scalability needs," Ancona said. "The distinctive advantage of the SafeKit solution is that, with an instant time to value, it removes both bottlenecks and single points of failures at each level of an e-architecture, from the network to the application."

SafeKit's comprehensive approach is the only solution that helps overcome the scalability, completeness and simplicity weaknesses of traditional load balancing and high availability solutions.

-- Scalability -- SafeKit's virtual IP address balancing allows traffic to be
split among any number of servers no limits to network bandwidth and number of
end user connections. This eliminates any single point of failure or
scalability problems experienced by network dispatchers.

-- Completeness -- Unlike hardware-only HA approaches, the comprehensive
SafeKit software fail-over management design addresses all causes for services
disruptions:

-- Disasters and failure of the hardware environment (loss of power, computer
room air-conditioning, etc.). SafeKit allows servers balancing the same virtual
IP address to be in distant locations across a LAN or WAN network, reducing
vulnerability to disasters. In addition, file replication can take place using
the standard LAN/WAN network.

-- Random software bug: SafeKit detects software errors such memory access
violation, and automatically triggers restart of the application.

-- On-the-fly repairs and upgrade -- With SafeKit's SafeMonitor tool,
maintenance operations can be performed on a SafeKit server while the
application or service remains available and load balanced on the other
servers.

-- Simplicity --SafeKit is a multiplatform, multihosting software-only solution
that does not require any dedicated hardware (e.g., network dispatcher, shared
disk) or impose any limits in term of network architecture or performance. As a
result, it provides maximum scalability with rapid time to value at a low cost
of ownership.

A New Product Offer with a Customer-Proven Success Record

Evidian developed SafeKit technology for specific e-business customers, and has successfully applied it for three years on the company's security and management product lines, AccessMaster(R) and OpenMaster(R).

Now, Evidian is making SafeKit available as a ready-to-use toolkit, bundled in plug-and-play mode for applications such as Web (e.g.,iPlanet, IIS, Apache); WAP; firewall (Firewall-1, NetWall); and authentication (Radius). Thanks to fast customization tools, SafeKit can be adapted by integrators, in-house developers and ISVs, for use with any kind of new application in less than five days.

The SNCF, the French rail transport system and technology leader of the "Trains a Grande Vitesse" (TGV), is the second leading French e-business site today, according to the NetValue panel, with revenue of $22 million in 1999. The site, www.SNCF.com, permits, among other things, access to timetables, reservations of trains and business-to-business freight activities for SNCF.

"The first version of SafeKit was selected from other solutions on our web portal in 1998, when e-commerce wasn't really in place," said Christophe Duplaix, Internet security manager for the SNCF. "We were impressed by SafeKit's plug-and-play, its low overhead, ability to be extended to any number of servers and its fast recovery time after hardware breakdowns. Today we are convinced that we have made the right choice with SafeKit. It protects us from portal disruption caused by overloads and equipment failures."

Availability and Pricing

SafeKit is available immediately in two configurations with a one month try-and-buy, and can be downloaded on the web at www.Evidian.com/SafeKit. SafeKit supports Solaris 2.6,7,8 (64 bits), Windows NT 4.0 service pack 5, Windows 2000 and AIX 4.2, 4.3.

-- SafeKit Web Edition -- ensures load balancing and fail-over on

hardware failure with possibility of configuring multiple

virtual IP addresses on the same physical servers. Price is

$3,090 per server with one year of free hot line support.

-- SafeKit Professional Edition -- a full featured toolkit for

SIs and OEMs that includes provisions for load balancing,

hardware failure detection, user scripts, software error

detection on abnormal process death, TCP, ping and user

checkers, SNMP management, file mirroring on UNIX, etc. Price

is $12,810 per server.

About Evidian

Evidian, a Groupe Bull company, is a leading vendor of e-infrastructure and Internet security management software (AccessMaster) for organizations of all kinds, and of secure e-infrastructure management software for enterprises (OpenMaster) and for telecom service providers and equipment manufacturers (OpenMaster for Telecom).

Based in Billerica, Mass., Evidian has research and development, sales, marketing, and service operations in the U.S. and Europe. More information on Evidian and its products is available via www.Evidian.com, via email at [e-mail] or by calling toll-free at 877/5Evidian.

Evidian, OpenMaster, AccessMaster and SafeKit are registered trademarks or trademarks of Evidian in the US and other countries. All trademarks, service marks and company names are the property of their respective owners.

Note to Editors: SafeKit features and documentation are available at www.Evidian.com/SafeKit. A graphic illustrating SafeKit functionality is also available. Free support for product reviews is available on demand.

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