VA Linux to Cooperate With Clara Online in Load Balancing and High-Availability Services; 'VA Balance' Offered to Customers of Clara Online's Dedicated Server Service for Linux.

Tokyo, Japan, Oct 31, 2005 - (JCN Newswire) - VA Linux Systems Japan K.K. (VA Linux), Japan's leading Linux and Open Source solutions provider, and Clara Online, Inc. today announced that the latter would adopt VA Balance, the former's load balancer and high-availability service solution, for Clara Online's dedicated server service for Linux. Both companies agreed that Clara Online would sell VA Balance to its housing customers at Clara's data centers and also work closely in marketing VA Balance.

VA Balance is a load balancer and high-availability service solution developed by VA Linux. VA Balance is comprised of Linux OS and various Open Source Softwares, and has been accepted by many network careers and ISPs since its first release in November, 2004.

According to the arrangement this time, VA Linux will provide VA Balance and its support to Clara Online, and meanwhile Clara Online will recommend VA Balance to its customers of dedicated server service for Linux as the load balancing component (up to Layer 4). Also, two companies will work together in promoting VA Balance. By this agreement, customers will enjoy both VA Linux's solid development / failure analysis power and Clara Online's high-quality server space service, and it will lead to high quality server space solution with reliable yet low-cost load balancing / high-availability feature. Clara Online's two customers of dedicated server service for Linux have already chosen VA Balance.

"VA Balance is the fruit of VA Linux's strong development competence based on rich experience in developing many Open Source Softwares including the Linux kernel itself", said Tatsuya Ueda, President and CEO of VA Linux in Tokyo. "I think that combining our development ability with Clara Online's high quality server space service would be the perfect match for coping with our customers' various demands, by enhancing the foundation of internet services. We at VA Linux are sure that this agreement promises better customer experience for customers of Clara Online's dedicated server service for Linux. VA Linux continues to plan and develop Open Source solutions such as VA Balance."

"Clara Online maintains its own data centers and networks, and adopts Red Hat Enterprise Linux and DELL servers for its all services. By establishing strong ties with our business partners, we can provide high value-added service at low cost", said Kentaro Iemoto, President and CEO of Clara Online, Inc. "These days, we face the rapid growth of access numbers and the size of web contents, so both the load and demand for reliability for our servers are increasing. Now we can work with VA Linux, well known for its excellence on Linux-related technology and experience, we hope we can provide our customers to new value-added service which provides better load balancing and high-availability via VA Balance. It will lead to better performance and customer experience for Web server systems. Also, by working together closely, we market VA Balance aggressively."

Starting from this arrangement, both companies will continue to deepen the partnership.

About VA Balance

VA Balance is a highly effective, high-availability load balancing software fully integrated with Linux OS and ideally suited to enterprise systems. VA Balance consists of UltraMonkey, a scalable open source load balancing software, and VA Core, a GNU/Linux system based on Debian; both are developed by VA Linux. VA Balance is a fully integrated solution. The control-configuration-monitoring framework provided by VA Core and the special UltraMonkey load balancing software optimized for VA Core are tightly linked and provide an effective and robust load balancing solution ideal for local area networks.

* VA Balance product page: http://www.valinux.co.jp/en/products/balance/

About Clara Online, Inc.

Clara Online, Inc. is a server hosting company based on Tokyo, Nagoya, and Taiwan. Owning 4.1Gbps connection channel in total, Clara Online has five data centers (two in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka and Seoul). Clara Online provides dedicated server service (one server for one customer), VPS service (one server for several customers by using virtual hosts), co-location service (housing customers' server in Clara's data centers) and domain name acquisition service. Please see http://www.clara.co.jp/ (in Japanese).

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