Released on: May 10, 2008, 11:19 pm

Press Release Author: Nirmala D\'souza/OAK Consulting

Industry: Software

Press Release Summary: Sybase helps the bank minimise database downtime for
business-critical applications by providing a continuously available standby system,
increasing availability and lowering Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Press Release Body: Dubai, United Arab Emirates, May 11, 2008: Habib Bank AG Zurich
(HBZ) was established in 1967 on a solid foundation of banking tradition that spans
several generations. Traditional banking values set in the context of international
banking has determined HBZ\'s corporate philosophy - \'Service with Security\' - for
over 41 years in operation. Providing trade finance, corporate, consumer, private,
retail and correspondent banking products, the bank offers highly personalized
service to its customers through its international network in 10 countries globally.
In addition to offering traditional banking products over a number of channels,
HBZ's leading technology solutions, hPLUS, from BiLOGiC Systems Inc., enables HBZ
clients to manage their accounts and conduct real time transactions 24 hours a day
world wide online.

HBZ wanted to raise standards and ensure a completely reliable data recovery system
in case of disaster. It set out to find a disaster recovery system with exceptional
data recovery capabilities that would help the bank eliminate database downtime - a
step that would reduce both the risks and the costs associated with system outages.
To overcome these challenges, HBZ turned to BiLOGiC Systems, which recommended
Sybase Mirror Activator thereby allowing HBZ to dramatically reduce failover time,
and restore availability in seconds with no data loss.

According to Mr. Baha AlSamawi, Sales Manager, UAE & Oman of Sybase Products Middle
East, "Application downtime is an operational risk that can potentially cost banks
millions of dollars. Each second the system is unavailable translates into lost
trades, missed transactions and ultimately lost revenue. HBZ's requirement for 24/7
availability and a zero loss data recovery system could be only achieved with
Sybase."

Sybase Mirror Activator leverages synchronous disk mirroring to guard against data
loss, as well as transaction replication to ensure data integrity by removing the
possibility of replicating corrupted data. Meanwhile, expensive hardware that
normally lies dormant as the standby server is being utilized for other
applications, such as reporting and decision support, significantly increasing the
return on investment for these assets. With this solution, organizations are not
only able to increase data availability, ensure data integrity, eliminate data loss
and reduce network bandwidth costs but are also able to lower the total cost of
ownership (TCO).

"HBZ has been leveraging Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise within our IT
infrastructure since 1994 due to the database's reliability for mission critical
transaction environments. The addition of Mirror Activator enables us to
dramatically lower the total cost of ownership of our business continuity
infrastructure by reducing failover time, leveraging the normally cold standby
database for reporting and decision support as well cutting network bandwidth
requirements." says Mr. Reza Habib, Joint President, HBZ

\"Sybase Mirror Activator was a perfect choice because it easily satisfies our
disaster recovery and back-up needs. It is is very stable and reliable. It also
meets all our requirements regarding enterprise data replication and guarantees that
data at the disaster recovery site is real-time, synchronous, integrated and always
available,\" adds Mr. Haja Alavudeen, Executive Vice President & Head of IT, HBZ.

"While disk block replication systems perform a vital function, they stay
synchronized by replicating blocks of data -a network-intensive process-
particularly for maintaining standby database applications," added Mr. Reza Habib.
"Sybase Mirror Activator works in conjunction with the Sybase replication system by
replicating only the log of data that has changed and maintains data integrity in
the process. Thus the bandwidth requirement is drastically low compared to disk
block based replication. Thanks to the live standby database that can support
re-routed traffic. Compared with the hours of time-to-recovery required by cold
standby systems, immediate failover is possible with this lossless replication
solution" he concluded.

About Habib Bank AG Zurich:

Habib Bank AG Zurich was established in 1967 on a solid foundation of banking
tradition that spans several generations. Traditional banking values set in the
context of international banking has determined Habib Bank AG Zurich\'s corporate
philosophy - \'Service with Security\' - for over 38 years in operation. Providing
trade finance, corporate, consumer, private, retail and correspondent banking
products, the bank offers highly personalized service to its customers through its
international network of over 50 branches. In addition to offering traditional
banking products over a number of channels, HBZ\'s leading technology solutions
allows its clients to manage their accounts and conduct real time transactions 24
hours a day world wide online.

About Sybase:
Sybase is the largest enterprise software company exclusively focused on managing
and mobilizing information from the data center to the point of action. Sybase
provides open, cross-platform solutions that securely deliver information anytime,
anywhere, enabling customers to create an information edge. The world's most
critical data in commerce, communications, finance, government and healthcare runs
on Sybase. With Sybase, customers can optimize and enhance the investments they
already own, link together the valuable data resources already in place, and extend
the reach of business-critical information to users on the front lines-giving them a
financial, agility and productivity edge across all areas of their business.
For more information, visit the Sybase Web site: http://www.sybase.ae
Sybase is a trademark of Sybase, Inc. ® indicates registration in the United States
of America.




Web Site: http://www.sybase.ae

Contact Details: Nirmala D\'souza
OAK Consulting FZC
Mobile:+971507343840
Email: nimi@oakconsulting.biz