Midas Kapiti Selects Vision Suite As An Accredited High Availability Solution.

Business Editors and High-Tech Writers

IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 31, 2000

Midas' End Users to Benefit From Vision Suite's Performance, Usability

and Data Integrity with the IBM E-Server iSeries 400 / AS/400

Vision Solutions Inc. ("Vision"), the global leader in the development and marketing of information availability management solutions, Tuesday announced that U.K.-based Midas-Kapiti International (MKI) has selected its high availability offering, Vision Suite as MKI's recommended solution.

After evaluating Vision Suite on the key areas of performance, usability and data integrity, MKI has confidently certified it as a reliable and proven high availability offering for its Midas DBA end users.

MKI develops and markets software solutions for the business operations of the wholesale, retail and private banking sectors, as well as for the treasury and capital markets. MKI and Vision have a Technology Partnership Agreement in place, whereby both companies will continue to ensure that Midas DBA and Vision Suite will operate successfully together.

Every organization faces periods when its mission-critical applications are inaccessible to its users, customers and business partners, due to computer downtime. This can have a considerable impact on an organization and, depending on the organization and industry, can cost tens of thousands of dollars a minute.

[pilcrow (paragraph sign)] As the expense of downtime increases -- costing companies in the United States alone more than $4 billion a year -- the need to increase computer system availability is quickly becoming a key concern of many businesses.

Vision provides a comprehensive range of solutions for an organization to minimize system downtime, both planned (backups, system maintenance, etc.) and unplanned (disasters, failures, etc.). Vision's terminology for maximizing computer system availability is Information Availability.

Vision Suite copies ("mirrors") every Midas transaction from the main IBM e-server iSeries 400 / AS/400 ("source") to a back up IBM e-server iSeries 400 / AS/400 ("target"). During any downtime, users are automatically switched to the target allowing users to continue to access the system. Once the period of downtime for the source is over, users can be automatically transferred back to the source.

With mirroring it is critical that all information is correct and transferred to the correct location and to avoid any data corruption, Vision Suite continually checks and repairs data to maintain 100% data integrity.

Another key feature is Vision's Remote Journaling Support, allowing Midas's journal receivers to be stored on a remote IBM e-server iSeries 400 / AS/400 in another part of the world, providing increased security against localized unplanned downtime like a power cut or flooding. Significantly for MIDAS users, Vision Suite minimizes system downtime during critical "Close of Month" processing.

Implementing Vision Suite at an organization using Midas requires no code change and is easily installed through a simple menu system. Vision Suite, requires no Midas code change, supports all MIDAS releases/versions from DBA release 2 onwards and its code is transparent and unobtrusive for MKI troubleshooting or other support issues.

MKI will provide front-line technical support for Vision Suite through its own support centers.

Roger Hedges, MKI's Midas product marketing manager stated: "MKI is committed to recommending the best solutions to our customers. Vision Suite offers many benefits to our end users and we are pleased to put our seal of approval on Vision's solution."

Rean Pretorius, Vision Solutions' senior vice president of sales was equally enthusiastic about MKI's certification of Vision Suite. He added, "MKI is the internationally renowned solution provider in the banking and finance sector with its solutions prominently installed in many key accounts.

"I believe that by making Vision Suite the first high availability solution certified by MKI, many new sales opportunities will open for Vision Solutions. This really is a `win-win' situation; Midas users will experience the security and safety that our high availability solution will provide and Vision Solutions will expand its presence in the global banking sector."

About Midas-Kapiti International (MKI) and Midas DBA

Midas-Kapiti International is a leading supplier of IT solutions to the wholesale, retail, private banking, treasury and capital markets. MKI has wholly owned sales and support centers in 28 countries and more than 1,800 IT and business professionals committed to delivering the highest levels of service.

More than 1,400 institutions use MKI products, including 96% of the world's top 50 banks and 60% of the top 250. Midas DBA is an international banking solution that provides a wide range of solutions covering business operations.

Midas DBA has been successfully installed in more than 650 sites in more than 80 countries worldwide and in financial institutions that vary widely in terms of both size and mix of business. MKI can be found on the Internet at www.midas-kapiti.com.

About Vision Solutions and Vision Suite

Founded in 1990 with headquarters in Irvine, Vision Solutions offers information availability solutions for a wide range of industries and includes prestigious companies as IBM, American Express, Kraft Foods, ABN-AMRO, Nestle Suisse and Toshiba America Information Systems as clients.

Vision is an IBM Premier Business Partner and also has technical partnerships with Compaq, Oracle, Microsoft, Sybase, Progress Software and Informix.

Vision's industry-recognized high availability solution, Vision Suite, comprises an Object Mirroring System (OMS) to copy data between source and target systems, and Object Distribution System (ODS) to transfer application software changes, system configurations and Integrated File System (IFS) objects between source and target systems.

Vision Suite also uses a System Availability Monitor (SAM) to continuously check on the availability of both source and target systems. Vision Suite provides Clustering, Remote Journaling, MQ Series and Single System Mirroring functionality. Vision can be found on the Internet at www.visionsolutions.com.

Note to Editors: Vision Solutions and SYMBIATOR are registered trademarks of Vision Solutions Inc. Vision Suite, Vision Suite Clustering Edition, Vision Express, SOLO/400 and Vision Industry Partner are trademarks of Vision Solutions Inc. IBM, the e-business logo, xSeries, iSeries and zSeries and AS/400 are all registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp. ClusterProven is a trademark of IBM. All other logos and trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners.