Versant to feature enJin Early Adopter Programme to turbocharge application servers at Java 2000 Show; Versant EnJin programme targeted at scalable, highperformance Java and EJB application environments.

M2 PRESSWIRE-4 October 2000-VERSANT: Versant to feature enJin Early Adopter Programme to turbocharge application servers at Java 2000 Show; Versant EnJin programme targeted at scalable, highperformance Java and EJB application environments (C)1994-2000 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

RDATE:04102000

Versant Corporation(NASDAQ: VSNT), a leading provider of middleware infrastructure technology, has announced the UK launch of its enJin Early Adopter Release (EAR) program at the Java 2000 Show, Olympia, London, from October 11 to 12.

Developed to help customers speed the performance and enhance the scalability of their application server environments, Versant's EnJin is the industry's first comprehensive middle-tier infrastructure platform to integrate with all Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) compliant application servers, and provides seamless synchronisation with the back-end enterprise database.

Customers using Versant enJin can expect performance enhancements of up to 50 times, depending on the complexity of their e-business application. In addition, Versant enJin is architected for highly distributed environments, a requirement for e-business applications, allowing scalability beyond what an application server is able to achieve on its own.

"Many customers experience a performance degradation once they have deployed an application server environment," said Christine A. Caldwell, VP of Marketing, Versant. "The reason for this is simple - the application server represents the next evolution of the object component architecture, highly suited for the distributed and complex e-business application they are serving. However, integrating that powerful architecture with the more traditional relational environment creates a bottleneck. Versant enJin removes that bottleneck, seamlessly, for our customers."

The secret of Versant enJin lies in its integrated set of components which include: seamless persistence for Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs), distributed caching, automatic failover for high availability and synchronisation with the back-end relational database. In addition, Versant enJin provides support for XML data, a Java interface and an EJB framework allowing customers to integrate enJin with any application server.

By persisting EJBs within the middle-tier, customers are able to forego the time-consuming process of converting from the object world to the relational world. Once a transaction is completed, Versant's synchronisation capability updates the back-end relational database, ensuring integrity of the information throughout the hand-off.

"We have architected our system for very high performance, scalability and guaranteed uptime," said Carl Schmidt, Co-founder and Chief Software Architect for Kazootek.com. "One of our customers, Cyberoad.com, offers an online gambling service and their users have exceedingly high requirements.

If we go down, they potentially lose several millions of dollars and their users are frustrated by the lost opportunity. We have found that Versant enJin, in combination with BEA WebLogic, allows us to provide the around-the-clock service we need as well as an ability to handle unpredictable peak loads."

The Versant Early Adopter Release Program lets companies "turbo-charge" their application servers starting now. The Program offers a complete package including one developer's license of the EAR software, three days enJin training and five days enJin consulting. When Versant enJin becomes generally available, each EAR customer can purchase developer licenses at a discount through the end of 2000. To register for EAR: www.versant.com/enjinearlyrelease. Pricing for the Program, available starting September 1, 2000 through December 31, 2000 is $20,000 US.

About Versant Corporation

Since the company's founding in 1988, Versant Corporation (NASDAQ: VSNT) has led the industry in providing highly scalable and reliable object management solutions for complex, enterprise-level systems. Customers in the telecommunications, financial services, transportation, and defence industries have depended on Versant ODBMS for large-scale applications such as yield management, fraud detection, real-time data collection and analysis, and operation support systems (OSS). Today, Versant enJin applies that same technology to another large-scale solution, helping customers build their e-business and Internet infrastructure where scalability, performance and fast time-to-market are critical success factors. Additional information about Versant at: www.versant.com

CONTACT: Adrian Jones, Versant Corporation Tel: +44 (0)1256 366500 e-mail: ajones@versant.com Jean-Claude Bellando, Versant Corporation Tel: +331 4507 6706 e-mail: bellando@versant.fr John Bradshaw, JBPR Tel: +44 (0)483 838331 e-mail: jbpr@x-stream.co.uk

((M2 Communications Ltd disclaims all liability for information provided within M2 PressWIRE. Data prepared by named party/parties. Further information on M2 PressWIRE can be obtained at http://www.presswire.net on the world wide web. Inquiries to info@m2.com)).