Global Financial-Messaging Provider Deploys UNIX System High-Availability Solution From HP.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 27, 1999--

S.W.I.F.T. Early Adopts the 5nines:5minutes Solution as a Key

Component of its IT Architecture

Hewlett-Packard Company today announced that Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (S.W.I.F.T.), a leader in global secure financial messaging, is one of the first to adopt the 5nines:5minutes solution -- which includes integrated products and services from HP, Oracle(R), Cisco and BEA -- as a key component of its IT architecture.

S.W.I.F.T., which moves more than $2 trillion (U.S.) daily for 6,700 financial institutions worldwide, is one of the first customers to work with HP and its partners to develop a 5nines:5minutes solution for use in its new IT infrastructure. S.W.I.F.T. has more than 20 years' experience in designing and operating proven high-availability solutions and has contributed significantly toward the design of the 5nines:5minutes solution.

HP's 5nines:5minutes vision is the first of its kind, with the goal to provide customers with 99.999 percent end-to-end availability, or less than five minutes of downtime annually, by the end of 2000. Oracle, Cisco and BEA are partners of the 5nines:5minutes program and are working with HP to jointly develop, integrate and optimize high-availability technology and services that will increase the uptime of IT applications across the entire technology infrastructure, including hardware, operating system, database, application and network.

"Availability, scalability and security are absolutely critical factors to our new IT architecture in order to maintain our global competitiveness," said Joseph Eng, chief information officer of S.W.I.F.T. "Over the past several months, HP, Oracle, Cisco and BEA have demonstrated how their 5nines:5minutes solutions will help S.W.I.F.T. implement its new IP-based services. This open systems solution, with integrated and pre-tested technology components and a common service and support infrastructure from multiple vendors, will save us significant effort in building and maintaining our new services. We plan to continue to work with industry partners to evolve the 5nines:5minutes program, so that it eases the deployment of S.W.I.F.T. services."

"This is a great example of how companies are leveraging 5nines:5minutes solutions to meet enterprisewide, mission-critical IT needs," said Bill Russell, executive vice president of HP Enterprise Computing. "The 5nines:5minutes vision grew out of challenges faced by customers like S.W.I.F.T. who demand the flexibility of open systems without compromising availability, scalability and security. HP and its partners are committed to delivering end-to-end solutions and continuing to meet the increasing demands for higher levels of availability today and in the future."

"The integrity and availability of the database are crucial in a mission-critical environment like S.W.I.F.T.'s, where millions of transactions are being executed on the database daily," said Charles Rozwat, Oracle senior vice president, Database Server Technologies. "As a founding partner of the 5nines:5minutes program, we have been working closely with HP to deliver fast database failover capability on the HP platform, which is a key technology in achieving end-to-end availability."

S.W.I.F.T.'s new network and services are ideally suited to financial market infrastructures. They are being used for Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS)(1) and are an integral part of the solution S.W.I.F.T., HP and their partners are proposing to the GSTPA(2) for cross-border securities settlement. The adoption of the 5nines:5minutes program will guarantee the highest levels of availability for critical market infrastructures such as CLS and GSTPA.

S.W.I.F.T. is building a new secure Internet Protocol (IP) network using best-of-breed solutions and an open UNIX(R) system computing model. The new network will carry a full range of easy-to-access, real-time, interactive communication services that financial institutions now need to complement S.W.I.F.T.'s existing store-and-forward messaging services.

S.W.I.F.T. supplies secure messaging, interface software and 24-hour global support to financial institutions in 189 countries. In 1999, S.W.I.F.T.'s global network will process over one billion messages, helping customers reduce costs, improve automation and manage risk. S.W.I.F.T.'s clients include banks, brokers, investment managers, securities deposit and clearing organizations and stock exchanges.

Information about SWIFT can be found at http://www.swift.com.

About HP

Hewlett-Packard Company -- a leading global provider of computing and imaging solutions and services for business and home -- is focused on capitalizing on the opportunities of the Internet and the proliferation of electronic services.

HP plans to launch Agilent Technologies as an independent company by mid-calendar 2000. Agilent consists of HP's test and measurement, semiconductor products, chemical analysis and healthcare solutions businesses, and has leading positions in multiple market segments.

HP has 123,500 employees worldwide and had total revenue of $47.1 billion in its 1998 fiscal year. Information about HP, its products and the company's Year 2000 program can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.hp.com.

(1) Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS) is a global foreign exchange settlement system to reduce counterparty risk. S.W.I.F.T. is providing all the networking components for the CLS system currently being tested for a group of 62 large financial institutions.

(2) Global Straight Through Processing Association (GSTPA) is an organization of banks, broker-dealers and fund managers seeking to automate international cross-border securities processing. S.W.I.F.T. and HP, along with The Depository Trust Company, Oracle and Andersen Consulting, are members of the Infrastructure Solutions Alliance, a consortium bidding to provide a one-stop shop for all the GSTPA's needs.

Note to Editors: Oracle is a registered U.S. trademark of Oracle Corporation, Redwood City, California. UNIX is a registered trademark of the Open Group.