LIVEVAULT SERVICE WINS NETWORK COMPUTING WELL-CONNECTED AWARD FOR BEST ONLINE BACKUP SERVICE

Backup Direct, the leading supplier of online services to UK business, today announced that the LiveVault Online Backup and Recovery Service™ earned Network Computing Magazine's 2005 Well-Connected Award for best online backup service.

For the eleventh consecutive year, Well-Connected Award winners were chosen from a pool of technology solutions that were researched, tested and recommended by Network Computing's expert editorial staff throughout the course of the year. LiveVault won in the Online Backup Service category over several competing online backup services. In October, the LiveVault Service also earned the Network Computing Editor's Choice Award for online backup services.

"The Well-Connected Awards are the only industry awards given by technologists based on real-world product testing and evaluation. These awards take the pulse of the technology industry and reflect the best of what IT has to offer," said Fritz Nelson, VP and Group Publisher of the Network Computing Enterprise Architecture Group. "This is an important distinction from any other award program-the products selected in the Well-Connected Awards are unique because they have been graded with the same criteria IT professionals use to make purchasing decisions-truly the most outstanding products and services available."

Like remote offices, small-and mid-sized businesses face significant challenges when it comes to protecting data. Tape-based backup systems are too complex and unreliable, and disk-based systems alone do nothing for archiving or to physically protect the data by getting it offsite where it is safe from harm. The LiveVault Service solves these problems by introducing the first end-to-end data protection system that combines all the speed and ease-of-use of disk-based backup with the critical advantage of automatically moving data offsite via a secure network connection. Available as a subscription service, LiveVault builds on a decade-long history and unique, patented approach to providing continuous, completely automated, 100% reliable data protection.

Key features of the LiveVault Service include:

Fully automated service-eliminates the risk of human error

Disk-based backup and recovery-removes the failure and burden associated with tape

Integrated backup, offsite storage, archiving and recovery-for complete data protection

Automatic offsite storage via the Internet-enables 100% guaranteed recovery of data

Onsite LiveVault TurboRestore appliance (optional)-for local rapid recovery of data

Continuous data protection (CDP)-transmits only the bytes that change as they change

"Awards like this help validate the use of online backup and recovery solutions that deliver automatic and continuous data protection with 100% guaranteed reliability for small and mid-sized businesses everywhere, said Paul Hrabal, President of U.S. Data Trust Corporation."

About Backup Direct
Backup Direct is a leading supplier of online data backup services for UK business. Backup Direct delivers: automated data backup, secure off-site storage, archiving and guaranteed fast data recovery. Clients receive reliable and secure data protection to maximise business continuity in case of disaster. Backup Direct's combination of business focus, leading technology, operational systems, SLAs and committed support combine to ensure simple, secure and affordable data protection. Founded in 2002, Backup Direct has more than 2000 UK business clients protecting over 30 terabytes of customer data. It is a leading Tier One provider of Iron Mountain Digital Services in the UK. Visit the company's website at www.backupdirect.net or call 0800 0 789 437.

About Iron Mountain Digital
Iron Mountain Digital is the world's leading provider of data backup/recovery and archiving software and services. The technology arm of Iron Mountain Incorporated offers a comprehensive suite of data protection and e-records management software and services to thousands of companies around the world, directly and through a world-wide network of channel partners. Iron Mountain Digital is based in Southborough, Mass. with European headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany.