Northern Trust Corporation Successfully Piloting Levanta by Linuxcare on IBM eServer zSeries Mainframe; Provides Scalable Infrastructure for Growth of Linux in the Data Center

Business Wire, August 13, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

LinuxWorld San Francisco 2002

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 2002

Linuxcare, Inc., a provider of software unlocking the benefits of server consolidation, today announced that Northern Trust Corporation (Nasdaq: NTRS), an international, multibank holding company headquartered in Chicago, has selected Levanta(TM) by Linuxcare as it looks to reduce the costs of managing Linux on its IBM eServer zSeries mainframe. Introduced last week, Levanta significantly simplifies administration of virtual Linux servers on the mainframe.

A financial services leader, Northern Trust is one of a growing number of companies that is successfully implementing Linux on the mainframe, allowing customers to take advantage of the low cost of Linux and the mission-critical reliability of the mainframe. As Northern Trust identified all the potential uses of Linux on the mainframe, it realized that a scalable tool was needed to configure, provision, and deploy the Linux instances. Northern Trust turned to Linuxcare as a unique solution provider.

"Streamlining maintenance and administration of a growing Linux environment requires a software-based solution," said Brian Diddens, vice president, Mainframe Services, Northern Trust Corporation. "After a review of Levanta by Linuxcare, we were impressed with its ability to bridge the technology differences between the mainframe and distributed system support environment, allowing our traditional mainframe system programmers to now maintain and administer Linux. As Linux use proliferates in our organization, we'll be ready." Brian Diddens will be speaking today on behalf of Northern Trust at Linuxcare's special LinuxWorld event at the W Hotel, Industry Room, in San Francisco at 3:30 pm PST.

"Northern Trust's use of Levanta on the IBM eServer zSeries mainframe reflects growing market acceptance of Linux on the mainframe in the demanding financial sector," said Rich Lechner, vice president, Sales and Marketing, IBM eServer zSeries. "In 2002, Linux on the mainframe has established itself as an enterprise-proven alternative for customers in the financial sector and other industries that require superior performance and value."

Levanta by Linuxcare allows both distributed and mainframe IT teams to work in their familiar operating environments, improving cross-organizational collaboration. Moreover, the software dramatically reduces Linux provisioning and deployment time, and enables a single administrator to configure and update more than twice as many instances of Linux. Levanta will allow Northern Trust to increase Linux usage without needing additional administrative staff.

"By engaging early with industry leaders, such as Northern Trust, Linuxcare designed software that delivers immediate customer impact," said Avery Lyford, Linuxcare CEO. "Customer savings dramatically increase as more Linux instances are deployed."

About Linuxcare, Inc.

Linuxcare provides software products to help enterprise companies consolidate servers. Levanta by Linuxcare provisions, configures, and updates virtual Linux servers on IBM zSeries mainframes under z/VM, IBM's virtualization software. Using Levanta, system administrators can more than double their effectiveness; data centers can deploy Linux with best practices; and Linux, PC, mainframe, networking, and other experts can more easily collaborate as a team. Founded in 1998, Linuxcare is headquartered in San Francisco and can be reached at http://www.linuxcare.com or by calling 888-546-4878.

LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Linuxcare is a trademark of Linuxcare, Inc. Other names used may be trademarks of their respective owners.