BIG-IP(R) Controller with Exclusive OneConnect(TM)
Content Switching Feature Provides a Breakthrough System
for Maximizing Server and Network Performance
New OneConnect feature helps reduce bandwidth costs up to 20%
NETWORLD + INTEROP, LAS VEGAS, NV, May 8, 2001--F5 Networks, Inc.
(Nasdaq:FFIV), the leading provider of Internet Traffic and Content
Management (iTCM) products, today announced the BIG-IP(R) Controller
4.0 with OneConnect(TM) Content Switching, enabling groundbreaking web
acceleration to help customers increase their return on investment by
reducing their total cost of ownership for web infrastructures. The
award-winning BIG-IP Controller provides the richest and most flexible
features for Internet traffic management and has the unique ability to
take preemptive measures to prevent application, server or network
problems. The BIG-IP Controller is part of F5's Internet Control
Architecture(TM), which defines a complete, unified and open
architectural solution for the distribution, delivery and control of
traffic, content and applications.
"peoples.com has been recently rated one of the top five financial
services Internet sites across the United States, Canada and Latin
America, and we pride ourselves on providing premier online services
to support our customers' needs 24 x 7," said Brian Terry,
Vice-President, Information Technology at People's Bank. "Today, the
BIG-IP Controller provides us with the advanced features and granular
control over traffic that we need to maximize uptime for both our
Internet and intranet applications and deliver the highest quality of
service to our customers. BIG-IP's new functionality will help us
extend uptime even further and increase the overall efficiency of our
servers and network, directly translating to lower cost of deployment
and increased ROI of our existing infrastructure."
Networking resources, including equipment, bandwidth, skilled
professionals and data center real estate, are steadily rising in
cost. The BIG-IP Controller 4.0 directly addresses this problem by (1)
significantly increasing the customer's existing web server and
network capacities, (2) reducing rack space, power consumption, and
simplifying management by consolidating best-of-class local and wide
area traffic management, and (3) and cost-effectively scaling
enterprise, managed services, and e-Business applications while
delivering on the promise of 99.999% uptime.
"Our enterprise and service provider customers are looking to
deploy truly flexible and adaptable infrastructures that can support
multiple application types and maximize infrastructure ROI," said
Peter Firstbrook, Senior Research Analyst at the META Group. "The IP
load balancer is increasingly the lynchpin component in the data
center that ultimately determines the Quality of Experience of Web
applications."
"Our customers depend on BIG-IP to support their business-critical
applications, so web site uptime is absolutely crucial to them," said
Jeff Pancottine, Senior Vice-President of Marketing and Business
Development at F5 Networks. "At F5, we've always been obsessed with
helping customers achieve high availability, reliability and optimal
performance for their Internet sites. BIG-IP 4.0 can now make even
more informed traffic management decisions through its unique ability
to collect key information from server applications and aggregate
connections for better bandwidth optimization. BIG-IP, with its
unprecedented intelligence and performance, is able to help customers
achieve 99.999% uptime and decrease the total cost of ownership of
their web infrastructure."
The BIG-IP Controller 4.0 builds upon the unique advantages that
F5 has already delivered to the market such as superior Layer 7
features and performance, integrated load balancing with SSL
acceleration, and the industry's richest set of persistence features.
Highlights of the BIG-IP Controller 4.0 include:
OneConnect(TM) Content Switching -- Enterprise web sites consist of
many servers and devices responding to multiple users accessing
different content and applications. Deploying the applications and
content on different servers is a common practice. OneConnect(TM)
reduces network bandwidth and significantly improves the end user
experience by not requiring network-intensive TCP connections to be
opened and closed for each object (HTML, GIF, etc) requested. BIG-IP's
OneConnect helps enterprises save money by reducing bandwidth costs up
to 20% and increasing the capacity of back-end servers. More traffic
can be accommodated without buying more equipment or bandwidth.
Client Aggregation
Client Aggregation takes requests from separate users and
consolidates them on BIG-IP. Consolidated traffic is then sent to
appropriate web servers -- minimizing the number of connections to the
server and enabling more efficient use of existing servers and network
resources.
Consolidate Best-of-Class Local and Wide Area Traffic Management --
Infrastructure is expensive. The equipment, manpower, rack space,
and electricity costs continue to rise. The combination of BIG-IP for
local area load balancing and the award-winning 3-DNS(R) Controller
for wide-area load balancing in a single unit, reduces overall
deployment costs, including management, rack space, and electrical
overhead.
Application Performance Monitoring -- Web applications respond to
users' requests differently at any given time. Traditionally, load
balancing has attempted to predict the ability of the server to handle
the next user's request. Application Performance Monitoring, allows
applications to have more input on how traffic is managed. With
Application Performance Monitoring, BIG-IP can receive input from
applications and take preemptive measures to avoid system failures.
Application Performance Monitoring offers an innovative approach to
effectively scale enterprise, managed services, and e-Business
applications.
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, healthcare, 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.
This press release may contain forward looking statements relating
to future events or future financial performance that involve risks
and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology
such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates,"
"believes," "estimates," "predicts", "potential" or "continue" or the
negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only
predictions and actual results could differ materially from those
anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors
including those identified in the Company's filings with the SEC.
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CONTACT: F5 Networks, Inc.
Robert J. Chamberlain, Chief Financial Officer
206/272-5555 |
