F5 Networks' Industry Leading BIG-IP Dramatically Raises the Bar for Network Security, High Availability and Load Balancing for Internet Traffic and Content Control
BIG-IP continues to sweep the market as the superior product that helps keep business-critical e-Business sites always available, fast and secure
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 22, 2000-- F5 Networks, Inc., (Nasdaq:FFIV - news), the leading provider of Internet traffic and content management (iTCM) products, today announced the release of version 3.0 of the Company's flagship product, the BIG-IP© Controller.
BIG-IP offers unparalleled Internet traffic and content controls that allow enterprises to deliver the highest quality of service to their users through their web sites. BIG-IP is designed to provide a new level of fault tolerance for Internet sites by shielding users from system failure and optimizing response times to user requests and data flow. BIG-IP was recently honored as the industry's Best Internet Product by the Washington Software Alliance.
``This latest version of BIG-IP is another example of how F5 rewards its customers by enabling them to easily take advantage of many advanced new features at no extra charge,' said Steve Goldman, Senior Vice-President of Sales, Marketing, and Services at F5 Networks. ``BIG-IP has quickly gained broad acceptance in the market, not only by many large enterprises, but also by the leading ASPs, ISPs, and network equipment manufacturers. This is primarily because BIG-IP is the most mature and sophisticated product of its kind and is designed to easily integrate into any network environment.'
The new version of BIG-IP delivers the market\022s most sophisticated and comprehensive traffic and content control features, enabling maximum flexibility for enterprises to best service their users' requests. This unprecedented level of control allows businesses to optimize backend resources within their Internet infrastructure and helps ease complicated network management issues. BIG-IP's key new intelligent traffic and content controls include:
Enhanced Reliability and Availability -- BIG-IP now includes a mode called Active-Active, which allows e-Businesses to take full advantage of traffic throughput for two BIG-IP controllers, simultaneously. When engaged, Active-Active ensures that identical information is shared by both BIG-IP Controllers. Not only are single points of failure removed from the network, both controllers help to increase site performance and capacity because each controller is literally ``sharing the load.'
Intelligent Traffic Control -- Making load balancing decisions based on only a few traffic factors is the equivalent of Internet 'tunnel vision.' To better service their customers and prospects, e-Businesses need to see greater detail -- and control a wider-range of traffic. BIG-IP contains new methods of intelligent traffic control, including transparent device persistence, cookie persistence (hash option), HTTP header load balancing, and more -- giving e-Businesses nearly unlimited flexibility and manageability over the flow of IP-based traffic.
Service Level Differentiation (HTTP Header Load Balancing) -- To make more granular and intelligent load balancing decisions, BIG-IP uses information such as HTTP header or IP address to determine where a customer request should be sent. BIG-IP can identify specific traffic based on HTTP header information, then direct that traffic to a set of servers or devices that can best service the request. For example, BIG-IP can recognize whether a customer is ``gold' (a frequent buyer) or ``bronze' (only an occasional buyer). A ``gold' customer's service request can be load balanced to a pool of servers reserved for similar high priority customers -- ensuring that these ``paying' customers receive the best service possible.
Value-Added Security -- BIG-IP comes standard with numerous security features to provide a highly scalable, available, and secure Internet site for both internal and external applications. BIG-IP can be used to balance both inbound and outbound traffic for devices like firewalls, caches, or routers. It enables stringent access control, secure administration, and helps resist common attacks. For example, BIG-IP provides an additional safeguard for threats such as denial of service (DoS) attacks where Internet servers are maliciously bombarded with non-legitimate requests.
About F5 Networks
F5 Networks is a leader in Internet Traffic and Content Management products. The Company's integrated suite of high-performance products automatically and intelligently manage Internet traffic and content to improve the availability and performance of mission-critical Internet servers and applications. F5 Networks helps companies avoid the risk of being burdened with ill-performing networks that do not meet end user expectations, while enabling network administrators to better control and predict the performance of their infrastructure. F5 Networks' products are designed to provide a new level of fault tolerance by shielding users from system failure; optimizing response times to user requests and data flow; and cost-effectively managing an organization's Internet infrastructure. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Columbus, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, The Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the United Kingdom. F5 Networks is located on the web at www.f5.com. |
