Taiwan Cooperative Bank Deploys Cisco-IBM Fiber Channel Network Storage System; Cisco-IBM Storage Area Network Offers Features Critical to Business Growth

Business Wire, May 19, 2006

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) today announced that Taiwan Cooperative Bank has successfully deployed a Cisco-IBM Fiber Channel network storage system. Based on Cisco MDS 9509 switches, the bank has built a new storage area network (SAN) architecture with advanced and critical features including cross-area data backup and post-disaster recovery, as well as high usability and simplified management via a user-friendly interface. All of these features are crucial for customer service enhancements and business growth amid the fierce competition in Taiwan's financial services landscape.

The Cisco-IBM solution also optimizes reliability and security for the bank's storage system and allows updates of the storage system to be processed without the need to shut it down first. As a result, the Taiwan Cooperative Bank is able to achieve its goal of always-on operation.

The network storage solution is comprised of Cisco MDS 9509 switches with FICON (fiber connection) capability and IBM's enterprise disk storage system. Certified by IBM, the Cisco solution offers additional features including VSANs (virtual SANs), integration of data storage and continuous operations.

In addition, the Cisco-based SAN solution allows a more flexible deployment of IBM's enterprise storage system in particular. With the support of the Cisco solution, IBM's enterprise storage system is more able to demonstrate its benefits as a cost effective, efficient, highly flexible and scalable solution in an open system or large-scale storage network environment.

Mr. C.H. Wu, operations director, Cisco Taiwan, remarked, "Taiwan Cooperative Bank has been undergoing enormous expansion as a result of its privatization and Taiwan's economic growth. The robust, reliable and high-performance Cisco-IBM solution will empower the bank to enhance its customer data management, cross-bank operations and security, as well as improve its capability for post-disaster recovery. All of these will enable Taiwan Cooperative Bank to provide unparalleled services to its customers and thus sharpen its edge in the increasingly competitive local financial services sector."

The Cisco-based SAN with FICON capability offers other major benefits to enterprises:

Highly Available Services

In the past, the bank's IT system had to shut down when running pilots of new financial services. That not only hampered the bank's services but also impacted its operational efficiency. Taking advantage of Cisco VSAN capabilities, the bank can integrate two different databases to allow pilots and normal services to run at the same time. In addition, the Cisco solution helps effectively manage data traffic without requiring any increase in bandwidth. This results in highly stable daily system operations.

Easy System Upgrade and Expansion

Cisco's solution simplifies system upgrade and expansion. Its modular design also makes upgrades economical and easy, resulting in reduced operational costs.

Cost-effective Storage Management

According to a study by McKinsey & Company and Merrill Lynch, the VSAN-enabled storage system is able to reduce the costs of maintenance and management by as much as 80%, compared with DAS-based storage architecture. This finding has been further validated by the experience of Taiwan Cooperative Bank in adopting the Cisco SAN solution with FICON, which enables the bank to enjoy significant cost savings.

About Taiwan Cooperative Bank

Taiwan Cooperative Bank (TCB) was officially inaugurated in October 1946, shortly after Taiwan was restored from Japanese occupation. The evolution of TCB has been interwoven with the development of the cooperative system in Taiwan, which can be traced back to the early years of the 20th century. "Taiwan Cooperative Association'' was first organized in 1923 as a central institution to assist the cooperative development on the island. It was later reorganized as the "Taiwan Federation of Cooperative'' in 1942, and then as "Taiwan Cooperative Treasury" in 1944, with the provision of financial and guidance services to its member cooperatives as its primary functions. Taiwan Cooperative Bank underwent corporatization in 2001 and further issued its first initial public offering in 2004. Taiwan Cooperative Bank was privatized in 2005.

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