ODS Creates winning Enterprise Network Solution for WAL-MART

The ODS Micro-Infinity Plus provides superior remote site management, 100%
fault tolerance and no single point-of-failure design to win WAL-MART
account

Richardson, Texas--September 11, 1995--Optical Data Systems, Inc. (ODS),
(NASDAQ-NMS:ODSI) announced today that it has been awarded a multi-million
dollar program by WAL-MART to supply its nationwide chain of retail
outlets with new ODS Micro-Infinity Plus hubs. The agreement will equip
over 300 WAL-MART retail locations with Micro-Infinity Plus hubs over the
next two years. ODS hopes to have the new hubs installed in over 100
stores by the end of 1995, and 300 plus stores by the end of 1996.

Early, last year WAL-MART began searching for a network design that would
improve their competitive position within the retailing marketplace. The
objective was to upgrade WAL-MART's Home Office network infrastructure and
achieve total control over the processes involved in supporting store
locations from the Home Office in Bentonville, Arkansas. Each retail
location demanded no single point of failure, zero down time, 100% fault
tolerance, fast checkouts and instantaneous recovery through remote
support with a high-degree of flexibility as well as scalability. The
Strategic Business Development Group at ODS worked closely with WAL-MART
engineers to research their business and understand their network needs.

To meet the remote store's hardware requirements, ODS deployed
Micro-Infinity Plus intelligent hubs, which incorporate sophisticated
remote management with no single point of failure. ODS' Infinity remote
management information base (RMON MIB) lets users analyze important
network utilization, determine which devices need more bandwidth,
troubleshoot network errors, disconnect registers that are causing
problems and alert network support staff about any failing device or
network downtime. It was also very important that the hardware
configuration delivered redundant capabilities and ensure that there would
be no single point of failure.

The Micro-Infinity Plus hubs were optimized for WAL-MART's needs. WAL-MART
needed to support legacy Token Ring-based LANs and provide a clear
migration path to Ethernet, and eventually to Switched or Fast Ethernet.
The Micro-Infinity Plus' modular hub design can provide support for both
topologies in a single hub and allow migration to faster 100-Mbps Ethernet
systems. The modular design supports up to 198 Ethernet ports and up to 20
Ethernet segments per hub and can easily be scaled to include as many hubs
as necessary to maintain additional growth. The ability to create multiple
segments with easy-to-use GUI software ensures that all network devices
receive sufficient bandwidth and any specific segment can be turned off in
seconds should it begin to impact the network.

Besides ODS' remote management capabilities and Micro-Infinity Plus hub
design, the WAL-MART enterprise network solution required the capability
to provide zero down time through 100% fault tolerance of cables, power
supplies, POS connections, and Ethernet ports. ODS hubs allow easy
maintenance and troubleshooting with TELNET support to monitor and
reconfigure hubs remotely; SLIP to allow reconfiguration of downed hubs,
routers or servers over regular phone lines; and, the capability of an ODS
hub to backup a Cisco or an ACC router in case of router failure.

"ODS was selected over other hub vendors based on their ability to learn
our business and provide a custom-tailored design that met our unique
network requirements," said Mike Fitzgerel, Director of Communication,
Technology for WAL-MART. He continued, "we needed the ability to provide
faster and more secure transactions for our customers at the check out
stands. The ODS solution reduced our item lookup times by 50 percent,
furthering our commitment to provide the fastest checkouts in the world.
ODS' design also provided the ability to monitor and manage our in-store
networks from our corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, which
greatly reduced our network's cost of ownership."

"At ODS we are true believers in understanding the client's existing
situation and performance goals before we begin the network planning
process. To accomplish this goal, we use a 'Value-Added Services Program'
that outlines the customer's business process first, then address how the
network will help the client accomplish their strategic business goals
using a specific network design," said Mark Bennett, Director of National
Accounts in ODS' strategic Business Development Group. "For example, ODS
deployed a team of on-site personnel and supplied several hundred thousand
dollars worth of network equipment during the course of a year to research
and learn WAL-MART's business, then created a precise solution to satisfy
WAL-MART's network design specifications."

The WAL-MART agreement is the most recent business awarded tn ODS for
networking hardware and software. Other recent wins include contracts with
Fortune 500 corporations such as Diebold, Inc., and an impressive
international agreement with NTT-AT to be the premier hub supplier for
NTT-AT in Japan.

Pricing and Availability

The Micro-Infinity Plus with Ethernet and Token Ring backplanes are
available immediately. Pricing starts at $5,080.

Optical Data Systems, Inc. (ODS) ODS sells a full range of intelligent
switching hubs; high-speed multi-protocol routers, bridges, switches and
sophisticated network management modules to large corporations that build
very large and advanced enterprise-wide information internetworks
including LANs, MANs and WANs. Its mainstay product, the ODS Infinity
intelligent switching hub, is the largest hub on the market that supports
all four of the industry standards--Ethernet, Token Ring, Fiber
Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM).
The Infinity hub provides superior local and remote SNMP-based management
that supports all groups of RMON for both Ethernet and Token Ring
networks. ODS can be reached at (214) 234-6400.

Optical Data Systems Inc
1101 E. Arapaho Rd
Richardson, TX 75081
214-301-3811,  fax 214-301-3893
ODS WWW: http://www.ods.com
WAL-MART WWW: http://www.wal-mart.com
 
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