RiskMetrics Group Announces New RiskBurst Architecture for Large Scale Risk Analytics Processing

Software-as-a-Service Pioneer Leverages Windows Azure for Asset Pricing Computation

NEW YORK, NY (November 17, 2009) – RiskMetrics Group (NYSE: RMG), a leading provider of risk management and corporate governance services to the global financial community, today announced its new RiskBurst Architecture Solution at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC).

RiskMetrics launched its first commercial Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering in 2001, developing a multitenant, scalable architecture for its services. Now, leveraging Windows Azure from Microsoft, RiskMetrics has developed RiskBurst, which provides on-demand scaling of its SaaS risk analytics.

The RiskBurst Architecture supports the packaging of financial security information and market price scenarios into distributable processing jobs. These processing jobs are then passed to RiskMetrics' analytics engines on Windows Azure for the computationally intensive simulations required to generate pricing scenarios for use in subsequent risk calculations.

"Windows Azure was an obvious choice for us as we looked at implementing public cloud-based analytics," said Rob Fraser, Head of Cloud Computing at RiskMetrics Group. "Our existing analytics are built around the latest Microsoft technology so we are able to use the same development tools and source code to rapidly extend our existing solution to Windows Azure."

"We have been excited to work with RiskMetrics on the development of RiskBurst," said Doug Hauger, General Manager of Windows Azure at Microsoft Corp. "Within a few weeks, RiskMetrics was able to take existing application code and scale it to use 2,000 instances on Windows Azure. With RiskMetrics planning to scale to at least 10,000 instances, the power of Windows Azure demonstrates the potential for cloud-based analytical platforms."

"Windows Azure allows us to augment our extensive on-premise capability with services based in the cloud," added Fraser. "Our clients' data is retained within our private SaaS platform, while we use Windows Azure to provide large amounts of computational power, many thousands of processors, for bursts of intensive Monte Carlo simulation based pricing on some of the most complex financial asset types. This is one innovative way we will continue to expand the scale of services for our clients."

About RiskMetrics Group

RiskMetrics Group is a leading provider of risk management and corporate governance products and services to participants in the global financial markets. By bringing transparency, expertise and access to the financial markets, RiskMetrics Group helps investors better understand and manage the risks associated with their financial holdings. Our solutions address a broad spectrum of risk across our clients' financial assets. Headquartered in New York with 20 global offices, RiskMetrics Group services some of the most prestigious institutions and corporations worldwide. For more information, please visit, www.riskmetrics.com.

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RiskMetrics Group Contacts:

Sarah Cohn
+1.212.354.4643
sarah.cohn@riskmetrics.com

Sarah Ball
+011.44.20.7063.5834
sarah.ball@riskmetrics.com