Dark Horse Comics Declares BakBone Its Backup Superhero; Leading Comic Publisher Cuts Its Business Risk in Half by Switching from EMC Dantz Retrospect to BakBone NetVault

Business Wire, June 7, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO -- BakBone Software(TM) (TSX:BKB)(Pink Sheets:BKBO), a leading provider of enterprise data protection solutions, today announced that Dark Horse Comics, the world's leading publisher of licensed comics material and third largest comic-book publisher in the U.S., has cut its business risk in half since switching from EMC Dantz Retrospect to BakBone NetVault.

Dark Horse uses NetVault for Mac OS X to backup a corporate network that comprises 30 servers -- 80 percent of which are Apple Macintosh along with a handful of Windows, Solaris, and OpenBSD. Backing up roughly six terabytes of critical data, as well as file and print services, including email, Internet, e-commerce, and internal applications, Dark Horse also needs to safeguard anywhere from 300 to 400 digital properties. Additionally, production files such as art renderings, scans, and proofs are maintained online on a 12-week retention schedule and are backed up nightly. Upgrading to the new Mac OS X gave Dark Horse an opportunity to increase overall functionality and resiliency, as well as address the problems with its existing data protection solution, which took too long to run backups, created excessive administrative overhead, and posted an unacceptable down time risk.

According to Chris Irvine, director of IT for Dark Horse Comics, increasing concern over the business impact of a lengthy restore in the event of a catastrophic failure prompted the team to re-evaluate the company's backup and recovery options. "Requiring more than 50 running hours to complete a full backup, our cumbersome backup process caused a lot of worry about how long our systems and employees would be idle in a worst-case scenario," he said. "In a hypothetical situation, we predicted restoring production files from tape using Retrospect could take 25 or more hours, which would force a work stoppage of up to two days, resulting in wasted labor costs of more than 30 personnel and considerable missed revenue. With NetVault, we consolidated our backup pools from 20 to five to easily accommodate our backup window while slashing our recovery time as well as our administrative overhead in half."

With enterprise server-level Macintosh support, scalability, cost, and performance all ranking high in choosing a data protection software partner, only NetVault for Mac OS X met Dark Horse's rigorous requirements. The fact that NetVault completely supports both Apple's Xserve line of server hardware as well as heterogeneous environments also gives Dark Horse the opportunity to standardize on a single software solution for all its data protection requirements.

"NetVault has proven to be a smart business decision that in the long run will mitigate our business risk by at least 50 percent," added Irvine. "We'll leverage NetVault's Macintosh enterprise support along with greater levels of performance and scalability to handle company expansion while easily maintaining data protection requirements."

"As BakBone continues to gain traction in the Mac market, we are committed to becoming the data protection vendor of choice, delivering customers the enterprise-class features and functionality that solve their data protection needs today," said Scott Petersen, vice president of North American sales, BakBone Software. "Using NetVault, customers like Dark Horse Comics can expect shorter, more manageable backup windows, reduced complexity, and increased reliability, coupled with 24x7 Mac tech support."

About Dark Horse Comics

The third largest comic-book publisher in the U.S., Dark Horse Comics is recognized as the world's leading publisher of licensed comics material. Nearing its 20th anniversary, Dark Horse Comics publishes more than 500 licensed, creator-owned and company-owned titles, including "Sin City," "Hellboy," "Conan," "Star Wars," "Akira," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Aliens," "Trigun," "Usagi Yojimbo," and "The Incredibles." Founder Mike Richardson has leveraged his passion for the medium to expand Dark Horse's sister company, Things From Another World (a chain of comic/pop culture retail stores), throughout Oregon, California, and on the web, as well as start up Dark Horse Entertainment, a film-making business that produced "The Mask," "Sin City," "Time Cop," and "Hellboy."

About BakBone Software, Inc.

BakBone Software is a leading international data protection solution provider that develops and distributes data backup, restore, and disaster recovery software for network storage and open-systems environments. BakBone delivers scalable solutions that address the complex demands of large enterprise environments, as well as small- to medium-size businesses. Founded in 2000, BakBone products are used by Fortune 1000 corporations and domestic and international government entities. Distributed through a select global network of OEM partners, resellers and solution providers, interested companies can learn more information about BakBone's products and services at www.bakbone.com or email info@bakbone.com.