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HOUSTON, TX -- Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ), today announces a storage industry milestone -- the availability of qualified Fibre Channel and Internet Protocol (FC-IP) technology to implement global data replication networks. This achievement once again raises the bar for storage networking by extending the reach of SANs around the globe and enhancing data recovery solutions with greater flexibility and reduced costs. Compaq customer The South Financial Group is a real world user of storage networks using FC-IP technology to achieve long-distance data replication. "In designing our business continuance strategy, we needed data recovery assurance and we wanted it to work within our existing IT infrastructure," said Hart Raley, vice president of client services, The South Financial Group. "The Compaq StorageWorks solution exceeded our expectations." Compaq now provides customers such as The South Financial Group with a SAN-based business continuance solution that leverages existing IP networks and allows users to implement solutions that extend across the city, across the country, or around the world. "The use of IP-enhanced storage networks for worldwide data distribution significantly improves SAN scalability, leverages existing customer skills, delivers faster time to implementation, simplifies long-distance SAN networking and provides new price performance options," said Mark Sorenson, vice president, Compaq Storage Software and Solutions Division. "Our SANworks Data Replication Manager (DRM) solution takes SANs into a whole new dimension by using FC-IP to replicate business critical data around the globe." The SANworks DRM FC-IP solution offers customers more flexible ways to manage their business continuance systems. By enabling remote replication of data in real time, Compaq offers customers a disaster tolerant, no-single-point-of-failure SAN solution based on StorageWorks Fibre Channel controllers. By using their existing IT infrastructures, customers can leverage regional SANs as recovery sites within the broader national or global infrastructure using IP networking. Customers may begin to broaden the reach of data replication from other companies as well. Compaq recently announced data replication solutions for Oracle and Giant Loop Networks. The company has also broadened support for Metro Area Networks (MAN) by introducing support for additional Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology from Cisco Systems and Controlware. Compaq demonstrated DRM FC-IP technology by linking the SAN across three continents in September 2001. Now available for customers around the world, this technology provides a production-ready application of the Global Replication Network as defined in Compaq's ENSA-2 roadmap. "As Compaq brings its FC-IP offering to the market, it also brings a desire to fully test remote copy solutions," said Dianne McAdam, Analyst, Illuminata, Inc. "This is not easy stuff. To have completed interoperability testing with three partners gives the user community alternatives when considering the addition of FC-IP-based solutions to their business continuance plans." For additional information visit www.compaq.com/storage