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Sirius Computer Solutions Wins IBM Beacon Award for Excellence in the Use of System z for New Workloads or Applications

Honolulu’s Aging IT Infrastructure and Applications Get Much-Needed Disaster Recovery and Faster Performance through Migration to System z9 Servers

San Antonio , TX – April 15, 2008 – Sirius Computer Solutions, Inc. has been named winner of the award for “Excellence in the Use of System z for New Workloads or Applications” in the annual IBM Beacon Awards competition, honoring IBM Business Partners for their ingenuity, innovation, client satisfaction and outstanding achievements in providing business solutions.

For the City and County of Honolulu , Sirius replaced an aging Multiprise 3000 H50 mainframe with a System z9 Business Class server and provided much-needed disaster recovery (DR) capabilities. The previous IT infrastructure included more than 100 COBOL applications, some as old as 30 years, running on the IBM Multiprise 3000 H50 mainframe, which was out of support.

To ensure that the applications could be migrated successfully, a z9 test system was set up in Sirius’ IBM Business Partner Innovation Center in Denver, Colorado , and the applications were ported over for testing. Business continuity was built into the solution, with a mirrored System z9 CBU server installed at a remote DR site. The disaster center was critical, not only to ensure reliable service to citizens and employees but also to meet audit requirements. The smaller System z9 is also being used as a development and testing platform to optimize return on investment. With this migration to an IBM System z, the City and County of Honolulu now have far greater systems reliability as well as flexibility, due to virtualization and the ability to create Linux partitions.

Sirius’ focus for System z is centered on new workloads and the benefits of System z as the heart of the client’s data center. Sirius product and sales teams hold a total of 63 System z certifications, and the company promotes System z solutions through events, its website, webcasts and advertising. Judges commented that, “Sirius demonstrates outstanding skills and investment in System z. High marks from the client underscored the strong application and systems expertise, implementation skills and business value that Sirius brought to this implementation.”

“Sirius Computer Solutions has been selected as an IBM Beacon Award winner because of their impressive accomplishments in promoting IBM’s latest innovations, achieving high client satisfaction and driving significant growth in the mainframe market,” said Ravi Marwaha, general manager, IBM Global Business Partners. “Sirius’ client engagements illustrate their ability to leverage IBM’s continuing innovation on the mainframe to enhance the value IBM System z brings to clients.”

The multifaceted solution that Sirius implemented for the City and County of Honolulu reflects the company’s commitment to providing complete, integrated solutions that help clients overcome the most daunting IT challenges. According to Sirius president Joe Mertens, “Our ability to bring together highly certified teams in a number of hardware, software and services disciplines allows us to solve complex infrastructure challenges for large governmental organizations like the City and County of Honolulu . Our teams form active partnerships with their staff to analyze, evaluate, configure, install and test the optimal systems for all aspects of the client’s organization.”

As an IBM Premier Business Partner and the world’s largest IBM value-added reseller, Sirius’ commitment to IBM products and programs like the Beacon Awards is reflected in that fact that Sirius has had Beacon Award Winners and/or Finalists every year since the Beacon program was created.

In addition to being an IBM Beacon Award Winner for the City and County of Honolulu project, Sirius was a 2008 Finalist for “Outstanding IBM Information Infrastructure Solution” for Monitronics and was a 2008 Finalist for “Innovative IBM Business Systems Solutions” for The Morey Corporation.

About IBM Beacon Awards:

More than 725 nominations were judged by a team of leading industry journalists, analysts and IBM executives, who selected winners and finalists in 37 award categories. These IBM Business Partners will be honored during a gala event at the IBM Business Partner Leadership Conference in Los Angeles on April 30 - May 2, 2008. For more information about the IBM Beacon Awards, please visit http://www-1.ibm.com/partnerworld/pwhome.nsf/weblook/2008_awards.html

About Sirius:

Sirius is a national IT solution provider and IBM Premier Business Partner that is dedicated to helping clients implement advanced infrastructure solutions that provide a competitive advantage and a positive return on their investment. Backed by 26 years of IT experience, Sirius has a certified team of sales and technical professionals with the skills, product knowledge and commitment to help clients develop and implement the right solution to solve their business needs. For more information about Sirius, visit www.siriuscom.com.

Contact Information:

Susan Griffin, Corporate Communications Manager, Sirius Computer Solutions

Phone: 503-430-6311 ; Email: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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