EDS and F5 Sign Global Cyber Security Alliance to Provide Secure,
Scalable, Fault-Tolerant Delivery of Internet Traffic and Content
Companies Combine Best-in-Class Offerings to Deliver Global Web
Assurance Solution for a Marketplace Expected to Exceed $11 Billion
in Five Years
SEATTLE and PLANO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 27, 2001--EDS
(NYSE:EDS) and F5 Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FFIV) today announced a
worldwide alliance to develop and market service offerings that will
provide clients new levels of security, scalability and availability
for their Web sites and firewalls.
F5 will provide its industry-leading Internet Traffic and Content
Management (iTCM) products, which form the building blocks for the
intelligent delivery of data over the Internet. Combining these
products with EDS' Business Process Management services and hosting
facilities will create proven, world-class solutions from a single
source.
The first product of the new alliance will be Global Web
Assurance, a subscription-based managed service that will give clients
an easy, cost-effective way for their distributed Internet sites to
have the 24X7 availability demanded by the digital economy. Clients
will pay only for what they need and can rely on EDS to manage the
content delivery service.
Terms of the alliance agreement allow EDS to offer all of F5
Networks' products, and F5 to offer any of EDS' services or products.
"Our customers rely on us to provide a high-performance, scalable,
and secure content delivery infrastructure to run their businesses,"
said Shakil Kidwai, vice president, EDS Global Information Assurance
Services. "EDS selected F5 and its market-leading products in order to
deliver solutions that make the Internet a more reliable and
intelligent platform, so that the right content gets to the right
people, at the right time. I'm confident that our alliance with F5
will provide many opportunities to deliver this critical customer
requirement."
"Global Web Assurance will be a highly effective service for any
business with globally distributed Web sites," said Jarad Carleton,
Internet Infrastructure Research Analyst at Frost and Sullivan. "To
maximize their Quality of Service, businesses need the ability to
transparently distribute traffic between internal data centers and
even a particular content delivery network, such as Akamai, Adero or
Digital Island. The alliance between EDS and F5 Networks is very
complementary and has tremendous potential, since EDS is deep-rooted
within global enterprises, and F5 Networks brings powerful scalability
with its network infrastructure offerings."
About Global Web Assurance
Global Web Assurance will allow clients with globally dispersed
Web sites to transparently and intelligently provide load balancing
and high availability for all their locations. The service uses F5
Networks' 3-DNS(R) Controller, which distributes traffic across arrays
of servers, sending content requests to the site or service provider
best able to fulfill the request. Clients can use the service to
easily and reliably deploy and support a global mission-critical Web
presence.
The service masks any data center failures, so that content and
applications are always available to users. With its ability to
transparently add additional data centers or service providers as
needed, Global Web Assurance allows for seamless migration of traffic
and content from one location or hosting facility to another with no
effect on users.
Global Web Assurance is designed to meet the needs of individual
business models. For example, a client could easily specify that all
requests for content originating from Brazil be routed to Web servers
physically located in Brazil. The Global Web Assurance service will be
available in the first quarter of 2001.
"We're pleased to be teaming with EDS, which has an established
track record of delivering the right strategies, solutions, and
services to the world's largest enterprise customers," said Jeff
Pancottine, senior vice president of Marketing and Business
Development for F5 Networks. "Global Web Assurance and subsequent
offerings from EDS and F5 will assure customers that their sites are
always on, are highly scalable and can deliver the right content -- on
a global scale. EDS clearly understands the unique demands of Internet
customers. Our joint development efforts will continue to produce
unique products and services aimed at improving the quality and
reliability of the Internet experience."
Content Delivery Market Drivers and Considerations
A Frost and Sullivan report(NOTE A) projects that by 2006 the
content delivery market is projected to exceed $11 billion, fueled by
the increase in Web usage, e-commerce and the need to reduce costs and
increase customer satisfaction by pushing content and applications to
the edge of the network. The report also states that companies wanting
to deliver viable content delivery solutions to their customers must
consider these strategies: 1) Develop partnerships in order to
strengthen competitive position; 2) Target global customers; 3)
Establish marketing programs aimed at educating customers; 4) Develop
global sales channels; and 5) Develop products and services based on
open standards.
NOTE A: Source: US Internet content delivery market No. 7847-74
About EDS
EDS, the leading global services company, provides strategy,
implementation and hosting for clients managing the business and
technology complexities of the digital economy. EDS brings together
the world's best technologies to address critical client business
imperatives. It helps clients eliminate boundaries, collaborate in new
ways, establish their customers' trust and continuously seek
improvement. EDS, with its management consulting subsidiary, A.T.
Kearney, serves the world's leading companies and governments in 55
countries. EDS reported revenues of $19.2 billion in 2000. The
company's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:EDS)
and the London Stock Exchange. Learn more at www.eds.com.
About F5 Networks
F5 Networks is the leader in Internet Traffic and Content
Management (iTCM), and delivers application aware networks through its
open Internet Control Architecture. F5 features the industry's leading
set of integrated products and services that manage, control and
optimize Internet traffic and content. Our solutions automatically and
intelligently deliver the best possible Internet performance,
availability and content distribution for service providers,
enterprises and e-businesses. Our products remove bandwidth congestion
and optimize the availability and speed of mission-critical Internet
servers and applications, including Web publishing, content delivery,
e-commerce, caching, firewalls and more. Our solutions are widely
deployed in large enterprises, the top service providers, financial
institutions, government agencies, health care, and portals throughout
the world. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and
has offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. F5
Networks is located on the Web at www.F5.com.
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CONTACT: F5 Networks, Inc.
Robert J. Chamberlain, Chief Financial Officer
206/505-0800 |
