Legent Delivers New Hierarchical Storage Management Product for SUN, HP, and IBM UNIX Platforms; New RELIANCE/XP family of product delivers enterprisewide storage management.

HERNDON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 3, 1995--Legent Corporation today announced a new hierarchical storage management (HSM) product for the Sun, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM distributed systems environments. Reliance/XP - Open Storage Manager (OSM) extends the capacity of existing network disk file system resources and eliminates productivity losses due to disk out-of-space conditions.

As corporations continue to move critical business functions on to distributed systems platforms, they are experiencing 60% - 80% annual growth in network disk resources. Legent's OSM helps contain this explosive growth by identifying files holding inactive data, and migrating them from expensive disk devices to more economical optical disk and magnetic tape volumes. The software works with standard UNIX file systems, even those already 100% full, and perpetuates the native format within the network storage repository. This characteristic reduces product adoption hurdles and eases user trepidation concerning proprietary mass storage formats.

"Until now, administrators responsible for providing adequate network disk resources have been caught between a rock and a hard place trying to appease both users and management," said Otto Offereins, vice president, Legent Corporation. "OSM is another best-of-breed solution from Legent that will deliver seemingly unlimited storage to users while dramatically reducing new disk device purchases."

OSM is a cornerstone product in Legent's new Reliance/XP family of storage management offerings. With OSM, Legent brings leading storage functionality to the distributed systems environment. It provides transparent file migration services, without the drawbacks associated with other product offerings. OSM is not a replacement file system product; it is compatible with other file system utilities and third party offerings.

It works with virtually any backup and restore product, including Legent's new Reliance/XP

- Network Backup & Restore (NBR) product which was also announced today.

Rules Based Discipline

The OSM technology applies a rules based discipline to the management of file system utilization. Files are selected based upon the date they were last accessed and upon their size. Typically, the oldest and largest files migrate first, and are replaced by a stub containing the original file inode and one data block. Stub files are typically 1K in length depending upon the block size of the client system platform.

Stub files maintain a consistent view of the file system namespace, so users need not search through file catalog databases or gigantic archive directories when they want to access migrated data. A simple file open request will cause the entire contents of the file to be reloaded, directly to a customer's disk file system. If the disk lacks sufficient free space, other inactive files will be migrated out to make room for the desired data. All the user will experience is a small delay in opening the file.

Acceptance of HSM

Studies conducted by Strategic Market Research indicate a growing acceptance of HSM within UNIX environments. System administrators are buying into the technology because management seeks a better resolution to the problem of endless new disk purchases. By migrating inactive data into an automated cartridge library, companies can reclaim up to 50% of their idle disk capacity, and temper reactionary bursts of new disk capacity growth.

Platforms, Pricing and Availability

Reliance/XP - OSM currently supports SUN and HP (700's), and has support for IBM's RS/6000 planned for Q3 1995. Legent's OSM will also support AMPEX devices which are targeted at the high-end storage market. Most storage products in the industry today are priced according to the amount of storage managed on the store side. OSM has a more unique and cost-beneficial method of pricing according to storage managed on the client side.

Legent's Open Storage Manager is currently available with North American pricing starting at $6,500. Prices vary based on quantity purchased and system configuration. Typical installations which consist of one server, one storage device and coverage for 20GBytes of file system, are priced at $25,000. Future versions of OSM will integrate with Legent's NBR product, and additional Legent products such as AgentWorks for integrated management of systems, networks, applications and databases.

For additional product and pricing information, customers should contact their nearest Legent sales representative or call [phone]. Interested VARs and Resellers should contact Legent's Partners Plus channel [phone].

Legent Corporation (NASDAQ:LGNT), headquartered in Herndon, Virginia is a leading supplier of software and services for the management of distributed computing across the enterprise.

-0-

All companies and products listed herein are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Legent Corp., Herndon

Krista L. Mohr, 703/708-3186

or

Beaupre & Co.

Glen Zimmerman, 603/436-6690