Linuxcare Strengthens Its Global Support Infrastructure, Adds Four Data Centers in New York, San Jose, London and Hong Kong

NEW YORK, February 2, 2000 -- Linuxcare, Inc., a recognized leader in providing comprehensive services for Linux, today announced a major enhancement to its Global Support Infrastructure--the addition of four live data centers in New York, San Jose, London and Hong Kong.

"Adding these four global data centers increases our worldwide presence, streamlines our ability to provide answers to our customers' technical support questions, and enables us to offer remote monitoring and maintenance of our customers' systems and networks," said Doug Nassaur, Linuxcare's CIO. "The infrastructure also enables us to distribute software, product fixes, security patches, updates and more via dedicated high-capacity lines. It's all about enabling more efficient collaboration and knowledge sharing."

Data Centers to be Repository for Case Resolution Database
The four data centers will house Linuxcare's unrivaled knowledgebase, a database of tens of thousands of Linux-related inquiries and resolutions. This data warehouse of case resolution information enables Linuxcare to quickly resolve and remediate Linux bugs, problems and issues for its customer base.

This is the world's largest cross-distribution Linux knowledge collection of its kind and includes comprehensive representation of cases from distributions such as Debian, Caldera, Red Hat, SuSE Linux, TurboLinux and more.

The knowledgebase was created from Linuxcare's experience in solving thousands of Linux support cases as well as compiling extensive data from various Open Source forums. The knowledgebase provides Linuxcare with the unique ability to address a wider range of support issues across more Linux distributions than any other company worldwide.

Foundation for Global, Distributed Support Teams
The four data centers will provide the foundation for building the first truly global online support infrastructure for Linux. Linux experts are distributed around the world, and the infrastructure will enable long-distance collaboration to solve complex customer problems. This approach fits in perfectly with the Open Source model, which by its very nature is collaborative and distributed.

"Our goal is to continue to recruit talented Linux experts worldwide, and to create virtual support teams working around the world," said Fernand Sarrat, CEO and president of Linuxcare. "Linuxcare support experts are wired together so that they can collaborate from local offices, home offices or wherever they happen to be providing support to customers anytime, anywhere in the world. The Linuxcare data centers become their virtual offices, enabling them to meet on the Internet and provide the best customer support for Linux in the industry."

Architecture for Breakthrough Service Delivery
The Linuxcare Global Support Infrastructure is designed for speed and reliability. Each node on the network has several fully redundant traces for knowledgebase access in order to ensure that a single outage within a node will not prevent anyone from gaining access to the information they need. Each node is configured with multiple 100Mbps connections to the Internet.

State-of-the-art networking technology is used to distribute traffic across the links to avoid saturation. The architecture is comprised of several layers:

• Web Application Layer
  A virtual layer of user interface programs that will provide a wide range of application services to the customer, partner or internal employee. Examples include the Linuxcare Knowledgebase and www.linuxcare.com. These services are offered in all four global technology centers.
   
   
• Application Abstract Layer
  A layer of application services that receives requests for information, services or actions from the Web Application Layer. The Application Abstract Layer then takes responsibility for executing the requests in the nearest, highest-performing technology center, and communicating the result to the requesting application. The requests can be queued by each service application. Many identical services can be running simultaneously to provide maximum scalability, throughput and recovery from points of failure.
   
   

• Data Abstract Layer
  A second layer of application services, each with its own corresponding data-mart and enterprise storage farm. Linuxcare utilizes enterprise storage farms from EMC Corporation to distribute identical knowledge to all four global technology centers. The Data Abstract Layer receives requests for data, and brokers requests to update or store data from the Application Abstract Layer.

  Since over time a significant portion of knowledgebase data can become relatively static, this layer determines whether updates are necessary in real-time or batch modes, communicating directly with other Data Abstract Layer brokers when real-time updates are required. Handling this data synchronization at a services layer provides greater flexibility, error handling and resource management by not moving large amounts of data around the world. Further, this approach guarantees rapid application development while minimizing any risk to uptime and data integrity. Once the Data Abstract Layer is written for one application it can be used by all new user interface applications.

• Data Layer
  The center of the Linuxcare infrastructure is its knowledge. The knowledge is stored in an organized superstructure data model that is supported on EMC enterprise storage disk arrays. Each disk array is replicated in each of the four global technology centers and brokered by Linux-driven database servers.

  These servers respond to the requests generated by the Data Abstract Layer and respond accordingly. The physical data stored at the Data Layer is replicated across each technology center on demand and according to regularly scheduled intervals to avoid customer downtime. While one center is being updated, customer traffic is dynamically distributed among the other three centers with no interruption in service. The reliability and performance of both the Linux operating system and the EMC disk storage systems are fundamental building blocks of Linuxcare's Global Support Infrastructure.

Linuxcare Expands Its Services
The addition of the four data centers fills out an already robust set of service and support offerings from Linuxcare including 24x7 technical support, global training, consulting and vendor-independent hardware certification. Today Linuxcare also announced their new Custom Solution Service (see related press release). Linuxcare offers the Custom Solution Service to customers and partners that want to optimize Linux for a specific hardware platform or software solution. "By using Linuxcare's Custom Solution Service to tailor and optimize their solution, many partners and customers will realize performance benefits such as increased disk I/O, faster Web page access and increased stability and security," said Bob Walters, Linuxcare vice president of business development. "By leveraging the domain expertise that Linuxcare provides, OEMs, ISVs and ISPs get to market faster with a better Linux offering."

"The major concern for Fortune 1000 companies," said Pat Lambs, Linuxcare vice president of service delivery, "is the availability of technical support and professional services on a global basis. Our Global Support Infrastructure will help us to provide leading-edge service solutions to customers anytime, anywhere, and it will enable us to scale our operations to address the growing demand for Linux in the enterprise."

About Linuxcare, Inc.
Linuxcare, Inc. is the leading provider of customer services for enterprise Linux environments, including technical support, professional services, education, and product certification. Linuxcare supports all major distributions of Linux, leading Open Source software solutions, and Linux-based enterprise database applications, on all major hardware platforms.

With funding from Kleiner Perkins and others, Linuxcare counts Dell Computer, IBM, and Sun Microsystems among its strategic partners. The company hosts http://www.linuxcare.com/ the world's leading online technical support resource for Linux.

Founded in 1998, Linuxcare is headquartered in San Francisco. The company can be reached at +1-415-354-4878. Japanese information regarding Linuxcare services is now available through jpinfo@linuxcare.com.

Linuxcare and Linuxcare logo are service marks, and "At the center of Linux" is a trademark of Linuxcare, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other trademarks are acknowledged.

Forward-Looking Statements
 
Forward-looking statements in this press release are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Investors are cautioned that statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding current or future financial performance, management's plans and objectives for future operations, product plans and performance, management's assessment of market factors and statements regarding the strategy and plans of Linuxcare and its strategic partners, constitute forward-looking statements which involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based upon Linuxcare's current expectations and judgement about future developments in Linuxcare's business and may be affected by several factors, including, without limitation, delays in or increased costs of production, delays in or lower than anticipated sales of Linuxcare services, general conditions in the computer industry. Linuxcare undertakes no obligation to update any such statements to reflect actual events.