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Opsware Customer BNSF Railway Company Named 2006 Network World Enterprise All-Star

Posted on: Tuesday, 3 October 2006, 09:00 CDT

Opsware Inc. (Nasdaq:OPSW), the leading provider of Data Center Automation software, today announced that its customer, BNSF Railway Company (BNSF), was named a 2006 Network World Enterprise All-Star for its exceptional use of Opsware Network Automation System. BNSF was honored in the Network Management category based on its strategic deployment of Opsware across thousands of network devices, including its mission-critical wireless infrastructure. BNSF's IT infrastructure supports one of the largest railroad operations in North America, with approximately 32,000 route miles in 28 states and two Canadian provinces. By automating management of network devices throughout its extensive infrastructure, BNSF has improved the quality of its customer service, increased operational efficiencies, ensured compliance with best practices and corporate policies, and achieved significant cost savings. This groundbreaking project is reflective of BNSF's reputation as a leader in the transportation industry, and will result in over $600,000 in cost avoidance.

"Based on our ability to automate management of network devices through Opsware, this has been a breakout year for BNSF with wireless," said Greg Britz, manager, Technology Services, for BNSF. "Opsware's IT Automation software has enabled us to manage configuration updates in milliseconds compared to minutes or hours when configuring by hand."

BNSF is one of the first companies in the railway industry to automate management of its complex, heterogeneous IT infrastructure. Using Opsware, BNSF has automated management of thousands of network devices, which are critical to ensuring the efficient, cost-effective handling of more than 10 million railcar, trailer and container shipments each year. Opsware provides BNSF with a consistent way to configure and secure devices system-wide, while ensuring all changes are in compliance with company policies and best practices.

Opsware's IT Automation software has been especially critical to the rapid expansion of BNSF's wireless initiative, which the company relies on to foster communication between railway operators and personnel at corporate headquarters. Based on the efficiencies gained from automation, BNSF more than doubled its wireless usage with a near zero-increase in labor costs and IT resources. By accelerating usage of its wireless network, BNSF has advanced company-wide communication across more than 40,000 employees, resulting in significant cost savings and higher levels of customer service.

"Enterprise All-Star Award judges selected BNSF Railway for its sophisticated use of automated change management technology. Automating change and configuration processes has allowed the company to finesse significant upgrades to its wired and wireless infrastructures in record time and while netting substantial cost-savings. It stands as a great example of how to use technology for business benefit," said Beth Schultz, editor, Network World Enterprise All-Star Issue.

This year's Enterprise All-Star competition netted 40 winners, culled from 75 finalists and nearly 200 entries total. Winners are segmented into eight categories (Applications; LANs & Routers; OS, Servers & Data Center; Network Management; Security; Storage; WANs, Convergence & VoIP; and Wireless) and represent a variety of vertical markets including the education, financial services, healthcare and hospitality industries.

About Network World's 2006 Enterprise All-Star Award

The Network World Enterprise All-Star Award program recognizes exceptional use of network technology to further enterprise business objectives. For the 2006 award -- the second annual -- Network World editors selected 40 enterprise IT organizations representing the best, most innovative application of network technologies in eight categories, such as Network Management, Security and Wireless. These award-winning network IT projects are profiled in Network World's special edition Signature Series Enterprise All-Star Issue published September 25. The All-Star Web site will launch coincident with the print publication. At that time, you can find it at www.networkworld.com/allstar/2006.

About BNSF Railway Company

A subsidiary of Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI), BNSF Railway operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America, with about 32,000 route miles in 28 states and two Canadian provinces. The railway is among the world's top transporters of intermodal traffic, moves more grain than any other American railroad, transports the components of many of the products we depend on daily, and hauls enough low-sulphur coal to generate about ten percent of the electricity produced in the United States. BNSF Railway is an industry leader in Web-enabling a variety of customer transactions at www.bnsf.com.

About Opsware Inc. (NASDAQ:OPSW)

Opsware Inc. is the world's leading Data Center Automation software company. The growth of the Internet is driving a shift from client/server computing to Web architecture. With this shift comes an overwhelming proliferation of servers, networking devices and applications, creating massive complexity that makes automated IT operations a necessity. Opsware automates the complete IT lifecycle and enables IT to automatically discover, provision, patch, configure, secure, change, scale, audit, recover, consolidate, migrate, and reallocate servers, network devices and applications. Over 350 of the world's largest companies, outsourcers and government agencies use Opsware to deliver this new, automated model of IT. For more information on Opsware Inc., please visit our Web site at www.opsware.com.

Opsware is a service mark and trademark of Opsware Inc. All other product names, service marks, and trademarks mentioned herein are trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding the benefits and capabilities of our software products. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements, including the risk that the assumptions underlying our current business strategy may change, that our experience operating as a software company is limited, and that the products may not perform as described. More information about these and other factors that could affect our business are included in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC on April 14, 2006 under the headings "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" and the Forms 10-Q and 8-K that we file during the fiscal year.

Source: Business Wire

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