IBM Commits $300 Million to Expand Business Continuity and Resiliency Services

IBM Commits $300 Million to Expand Business Continuity and Resiliency Services

13 New Delivery Centers Around the Globe to Keep Businesses Safe: Provide Business Continuity and Recovery in Cloud Setting

ARMONK, NY–(EMWNews – August 20, 2008) – IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced it is investing

US$300 million to construct 13 Business Resilience service delivery centers

in 10 countries in 2008, increasing its ability to address surging demand

from businesses and governments from around the world seeking to keep their

operations safe from disruption. The massive infrastructure expansion is

the largest of its kind and will permit IBM clients to access services that

support business continuity for the first time from a cloud computing

environment.

Business continuity and resiliency services help ensure uninterrupted

operations across all layers of the business, as well as helping businesses

avoid, prepare and recover from a disruption. IBM is the world’s leader in

providing services that help avoid disruption and enable business

continuity.

Future Business Resilience service delivery centers will be located in

every geographic region of the globe, with sites including Hong Kong;

Tokyo, Japan; Paris, France; London, UK; Beijing and Shanghai, China;

Izmir, Turkey; Warsaw, Poland; Milan, Italy; Metro Park, New Jersey;

Cologne, Germany; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Mumbai, India; South Africa; and

Brussels, Belgium. The centers are specifically designed to help clients

maintain business operations under virtually any condition, comply with

industry and government regulations and recover rapidly from disasters.

“Enterprise Rent-A-Car is in the business of providing exceptional customer

service and that is how we differentiate ourselves,” said Richard Bozada,

Department Manager of Business Continuity, Enterprise Rent-A-Car. “To that

extent, IBM helps us achieve our business goals by creating a highly

resilient environment that is anchored by a world class IBM service

delivery team. Through IBM’s Business Resilience Centers we are able to

address and minimize multiple points of business and event-driven risk.

Today’s commitment further validates the strategic approach we’ve taken to

key aspects of our IT operations.”

IBM is also today accelerating the build-out of its Information Protection

Services business to deliver cloud-based computing services to support

business continuity. Services from IBM Information Protection Services

combine IBM hardware with storage management software in a fully

configured, rack-mounted storage appliance, known as a data protection

“vault” that is capable of storing multi-terabytes of information and

applications data. The vaults are integrated with technology gained via

IBM’s acquisition of Arsenal Digital Solutions in 2008. The patent-pending

on-demand service delivery platform enables global scalability of

information protection services and rapid time-to-protection of customer

data.

Using the service delivery platform, clients will be able to take advantage

of cloud computing capabilities by storing their business data in IBM’s

data protection vaults that will be based in IBM’s global business

resiliency centers. Once the information is protected, customers will be

able to immediately recover that information by restoring and retrieving it

from a center directly to the client’s business or to an alternative

worksite recovery area in the event of a disaster.

The acquisition of Arsenal and the accelerated deployment of its data

protection vaults globally will help IBM offer clients sophisticated remote

data management and business continuity capabilities, like storing,

replicating and recovering key data and business applications through an

IBM business resiliency center.

“Today, IBM, the global leader of business continuity and resiliency, makes

a historic investment and commitment to clients for whom continuous and

resilient business operations are an imperative,” said Philippe Jarre,

general manager of IBM Global Business Continuity and Resiliency Services.

“Whether it be via acquisitions, expansion of our consulting services, or

the opening of new service delivery centers, IBM is committed to helping

clients achieve the levels of business continuity necessary to meet the

triple threat of data protection, security and compliance head-on.”

With 40 years of global experience in the business continuity arena and

more than 150 business resilience delivery centers worldwide, IBM has deep

industry-specific knowledge and a portfolio of unmatched services that help

companies avoid disruption and keep their operations online.

About IBM

For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/services.

Contact: Jennifer Knecht 917-472-3607 [email protected]