SEPATON, Inc., a leader in high-performance data protection solutions, today announced that its S2100(R)-ES2 Virtual Tape Library (VTL) system, which eliminates tape drive bottlenecks to shrink backup windows and restore times, has successfully passed compatibility testing with IBM Tivoli(R) Storage Manager and separately has received IBM TotalStorage Proven qualification. SEPATON has also been named an official IBM Business Partner and plans to support marketing and sales initiatives to educate customers about the combined solution for integrating the management of traditional tape-based systems with the high-performance and reliability of disk.

"Building upon our long-standing relationship with IBM, our participation in the TotalStorage Proven program demonstrates that SEPATON is working to increase customer satisfaction by promoting greater interoperability," said Miklos Sandorfi, chief technology officer for SEPATON, Inc. "This accomplishment demonstrates to customers of IBM storage technologies and SEPATON's S2100-ES2 that our solutions have been verified to work together."

Leading businesses have chosen SEPATON's VTL solution because it leverages their existing IBM Tape Library and IBM Tivoli Storage Manager solution. The SEPATON VTL solution and IBM tape drives are directly connected to the IBM TSM server, and are designed to provide customers with a high-performance backup system with flexibility for backup operations, while helping to simplify and accelerate the backup and restore process.

In order to attain IBM TotalStorage Proven qualification, SEPATON was required to provide a customer reference installation that demonstrates the compatibility and interoperability of its VTL solution with Tivoli Storage Manager in a real-world application. This qualification further demonstrates SEPATON's commitment to interoperability since having received IBM's Ready for Tivoli Validation in April 2004.

The IBM TotalStorage Proven program is a testing and configuration initiative designed to foster end-to-end interoperability in multi-vendor IBM-based storage environments. It has been designed on the premise that customers must be given the confidence to select the best combination of integrated storage technologies to help minimize their investment risk, increase efficiency, and expedite their infrastructure implementation. The TotalStorage Proven emblem represents solutions that have successfully completed interoperability requirements with IBM TotalStorage products and have obtained IBM confirmation.

About SEPATON, Inc.

Based in Marlborough, MA, SEPATON, Inc. develops and markets a family of award-winning data protection solutions to medium and large data centers that must manage multiple terabytes of data daily. SEPATON's data protection solutions integrate seamlessly into existing customer environments. The SEPATON S2100 was named 2004 backup hardware product of the year by Storage magazine and SearchStorage.com. The company is privately held with investments from Jerusalem Venture Partners, Menlo Ventures, and Valhalla Partners. For more information, visit www.sepaton.com.

SEPATON and S2100 are registered trademarks of SEPATON Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.