News & Events

GRESHAM COMPUTING AND TRIBUTARY SYSTEMS SIGN OEM DEAL, CREATING VITAL™ STORAGE FOR HP NONSTOP MARKET

AUSTIN, TEXAS – 3 August 2006 – Gresham Enterprise Storage has today confirmed an OEM agreement for its Storage Consolidation Platform (SCP) with Tributary Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in tape storage, automation and connectivity solutions for the HP NonStop high availability platform.

Gresham's SCP takes a unique approach to solving the challenge of VTL consolidation in an enterprise environment.By building on the benefits of traditional virtual tape systems, SCP coexists with tape rather than replacing it to provide agile handling of storage operations. SCP combines virtual tape library (VTL) functionality with enterprise-class tape management to enable any combination of storage applications to use any tape device in the customer environment, no matter the model of tape drive, library or media.

As a specialist provider of high availability storage solutions, Tributary Systems recognised the potential of Gresham's cross-platform open standard SCP solution. After a stringent evaluation process which began last year, during which SCP was subjected to the rigorous, 100 per cent duty cycle standards of the HP NonStop high availability platform, Tributary Systems confirmed its selection of Gresham's SCP technology for its VITAL (Virtual Integrated Tape and Library) solution.

VITAL, which becomes commercially available this month, provides a unified, single point of control for managing data backup, restore and archival requirements across heterogeneous hosts, storage devices and backup software applications. Unlike many storage virtualization solutions available today, VITAL delivers seamless back-end tape operations across existing and new physical tape storage devices and libraries, coupled with remote backup for disaster recovery purposes.

"Gresham's extensive experience tape storage solutions, evidenced by its customer list which includes more than half of the Fortune Global 500, sets them apart from other players in this space," said Shawn Sabanayagam, President and CEO of Tributary Systems, Inc. "Working together to apply that in-depth expertise to the HP NonStop environment, we have created an unparalleled high availability solution that will deliver real value to our customers."

Andrew Walton-Green, CEO of Gresham Computing plc, said "There is astrong demand in the market from enterprises running complex and high volume data storage environments to ease management overheads and reduce cost, ultimately achieving higher value from their investments. By bringing the cross-platform expertise of one of the world's leading VTL providers to the HP NonStop market, VITAL delivers the benefits of open standard technology in a robust and high availability environment, helping HP NonStop users to fully leverage their investments in heterogeneous environments."

VITAL is already attracting significant interest from enterprises across a variety of sectors, including retail, telecom, healthcare and financial services. Proof of concepts are underway in multiple customer sites and are expected to be converted to live sites before the end of the current quarter.

Gresham Computing supplies a broad range of storage technologies to many of the Fortune Global 500. Currently, the company has agreements in place that see its Enterprise DistribuTape (EDT) product being re-sold through Sun, IBM and EDS. EDT is currently installed in over 300 of the world's largest data centers.

Background
Gresham SCP was recently short-listed in a report (July 2006) by independent data storage experts Diogenes Analytical Laboratories. SearchStorage.com published the report comparing over a dozen VTL solutions to enable IT buyers to select the best solution as part of their enterprise storage strategy. Shortlist candidates are selected from the entire field based on Diogenes' assessment of high-caliber functionality and the ability to meet the enterprise storage needs of most IT organizations.

About Tributary Systems
Tributary Systems is the worldwide leader in developing state-of-the-art tape storage, automation and connectivity solutions for the HP NonStop high availability platform and other enterprise computing platforms. Based in Dallas, Texas, Tributary Systems serves as an outsourced engineering, development, integration, testing delivery and support arm for the HP NonStop Enterprise Division. Tributary Systems, founded in 1991, has a worldwide customer base consisting of Fortune 500 companies as well as small business enterprises in the financial, retail, banking, medical/healthcare, e-commerce, telecommunications and IT services sectors. For more information on the company, its products and services please visit www.tributary.com

About Gresham Computing plc
Gresham Computing plc is the parent company of Gresham Enterprise Storage based in Austin, Texas. Gresham Computing specializes in delivering real-time information solutions. Gresham develops and implements software solutions for banking,as well as integration and storage solutions. Many of the world's most successful organizations (including many of the Fortune Global 500) choose Gresham to help improve their competitive edge and bottom line performance in some of the most challenging market sectors. Gresham Computing plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (GHT) and has offices in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.gresham-computing.com.

For more information, contact:

Sharon Nieuwenhuis
Write Image
+1 917 320 6452
sharon.nieuwenhuis@write-image.com

Anisha Mulchand
Write Image
+44 (0)20 7959 5400
russell.gerry@write-image.co.uk

03 August 2006