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BEAR Data's IT Solutions Achieving Energy Savings of 30 Percent

New Hardware and Virtualization Tools Quickly Pay for Themselves While Delivering More Power, Increased Productivity, Streamlined Monitoring

San Francisco, July 2, 2009 – BEAR Data Systems, Inc., (www.Bdata.com) a leading California IT solutions and services provider and Cisco Gold-certified partner, announced today that its hardware and virtualization tools are helping clients achieve energy savings of 30 percent or more. With this savings and BEAR Data's recent report that utility rebates are enabling clients to recover as much as half of their upgrade investment, the updates are quickly paying for themselves.

BEAR Data's solutions are being welcomed by businesses of all sizes who have reduced IT staffs and tight budgets because they offer more than just energy savings. By replacing old equipment with more efficient computing hardware and installing power management systems, companies are also benefitting from increased power, enhanced productivity and streamlined monitoring.

Large IT departments in California report that it isn't uncommon to spend between $14 and $20 million a year on data center electricity. “Even if companies could afford today's higher energy prices, the supply of electricity hasn't kept up with datacenter demand,” said Don James, CEO of BEAR Data Systems, Inc. “Organizations need solutions that significantly lower their power costs and reduce the impact their activities have on the environment.”

Consistently ranked among the fastest growing IT integrators, BEAR Data has experienced double-digit growth for the past three years and appears to be on track with its approach to helping clients reduce their energy costs. According to IDC, the top three priorities listed by CIOs for reducing energy costs were: more efficient IT devices. Monitoring software for energy consumption was second and virtualization was third.

“It's extremely difficult for IT management teams to maintain their day-to-day business operations and also invest in new strategic activities,” he said. “California organizations like the El Camino Hospital Group, Yosemite Community College, Varian Medical Systems and more than a dozen other firms across the state are implementing BEAR Data developed virtualization storage, network and computing resource programs to control costs and improve user response while reducing cooling and power costs and lowering carbon emissions.

New IT Generation

“Today, we have a whole new generation of system servers that deliver more processing power in less space,” James continued. “Then, by using advanced virtualization/optimization software, we can enable them to manage the hardware processing, storage and networking resources efficiently and effectively so that they are usually able to do more with fewer resources.

James said that the company's implementation team was able to help one of BEAR Data's largest healthcare clients install a new virtualization solution that enabled them improve the utilization of the computer servers from 15-20 percent up to an average of 75 percent. “They are actually doing more with less,” he added. “Less power and less equipment.”

BEAR Data's CEO also pointed out that the new virtualized system allowed the IT department to be more responsive to the organization's business and healthcare management requirements. They were able to implement new and more robust applications in a minimum amount of time and install and manage even more robust IT security solution.

James emphasized that the new hardware and virtualization tools can be even more valuable to the large number of small- to medium-sized businesses in the state and across the country.

“IT managers in these companies often have to manage and maintain legacy hardware and applications with limited budgets and limited staffs,” he explained. “In a growing number of instances, we've been able to help them virtualize their activities so they require fewer servers and other hardware, can work seamlessly across multiple hardware platforms and operating systems, and can quickly migrate to the new solution. All it required was the right tools in the hands of expert technicians.”

“Every enterprise IT team we talk with is focusing on expanding their computing infrastructure so they're prepared to handle the workload when the business environment improves,” said James. “One of the keys to staying ahead of organizational demand is to take advantage of advanced virtualization technology and more powerful systems that are also more efficient.”

About BEAR Data Systems

Headquartered in San Francisco, BEAR Data Systems, Inc. has offices throughout California that focus on helping clients design, optimize and support mission-critical IT infrastructures. Services areas include virtualization, data center services, unified communications, networking, storage, database, security, wireless solutions, staffing and support contract management. In 2008, BEAR Data was named the #23 Fastest Growing Private Company in Northern California by the San Francisco Business Times and was named #20 on the Fast Growth 100 list by CRN Magazine. BEAR Data has also been awarded the Cisco Customer Satisfaction Excellence Award four years in a row.. In 2007, BEAR Data was awarded the "Newcomer of the Year" award and ranked as the 13th fastest growing company in North America by VARBusiness. BEAR Data combines expert engineering resources, best-of-breed technologies and superior customer service to deliver high performance IT solutions on-time and on-budget. For more information and BEAR Data locations, visit www.beardatasystems.com.