F5 Delivers Next-Generation Application Delivery Services Giving Enterprises More Control with Context-Aware Networking

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), today announced the expansion of its industry-leading application delivery services portfolio. Building on the recent announcements of BIG-IP^® v10.1’s unique web security capabilities and functionality supporting the intelligent scaling of mobile infrastructures, F5 is introducing additional advanced Application Delivery Controller services and products designed to support enterprises’ efforts to move toward a more dynamic data center, reduce infrastructure costs, enhance workforce efficiency, and simplify access policy enforcement.

The powerful new BIG-IP release offers a rich set of advanced services providing unparalleled control and compelling cost savings for enterprises, as well as service and cloud providers. BIG-IP v10.1 enables organizations to: (1) Reduce CapEx and OpEx through centralized, granular access control using the new BIG-IP^® Access Policy Manager^™ product module; (2) Improve end-user experience and enhance security by creating policies based on user location with IP geolocation services integrated into the TMOS^® platform; (3) Reduce bandwidth costs and improve disaster recovery through accelerated data transfers with the new BIG-IP WAN Optimization Module^™; (4) Deploy applications faster by leveraging new Application Ready Templates for SAP and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

BIG-IP Access Policy Manager for Convenient, Flexible Application Access

With virtualization and cloud computing models becoming key pillars of today’s enterprise architectures, increasing application traffic is placing higher demand on organizations to control and secure corporate data. F5’s new BIG-IP^® Access Policy Manager^™ (APM^™) module enables IT departments to provide policy-based, customizable access and authentication to web applications for corporate employees (local and remote), mobile workers, business partners, and customers. By integrating and consolidating authentication services, BIG-IP helps organizations eliminate the need for costly authentication enforcement alternatives. The APM module also greatly reduces the costs associated with change control and compliance reporting. Instead of a highly distributed and unmanageable architecture, F5 consolidates and simplifies authentication services into a few strategic points of control.

"With this new release, F5 has provided a roadmap of offerings that meet our strategic goals in terms of business growth,” said Dean Newman, Director of Information Technology at PensionsFirst Analytics, which offers risk management analysis and advisory services to the defined benefit (DB) pensions industry. "The solution protects the initial investment we’ve made in securing our web application with BIG-IP Access Policy Manager because we can continue adding services as we require them without having to re-engineer our security environment. With BIG-IP APM, we’ve built an iron fence around our web application. It not only protects the application; it helps us manage the traffic and the user experience.”

BIG-IP WAN Optimization Module for Data Center-to-Data Center Replication

Expanding F5’s WAN application delivery services, the BIG-IP WAN Optimization Module^™ (WOM^™) accelerates data transfer over the network by optimizing traffic and bandwidth through the use of adaptive compression and de-duplication technologies. WOM enhances data center-to-data center replication of mission-critical applications like storage data and virtual machine images, dramatically reducing bandwidth costs while increasing transfer rates up to 70 times over existing methods. This new BIG-IP product module improves organizations’ overall disaster recovery posture, ensuring data is replicated quickly and reliably at speeds greater than 1 Gbps—faster and less expensive than any alternative on the market today.

Geolocation Services Integrated in TMOS for Enhanced Security

BIG-IP v10.1 also includes the industry’s first geolocation services database that identifies the physical location of a user by monitoring additional contextual information for BIG-IP products. This location information, coupled with F5’s unique iRules^™ scripting language, enables customers to take into account the users’ actual location and access conditions in order to determine the best application delivery policy. This information provides additional intelligence to help customers better secure, optimize, and direct end-user application transactions. The alternative today is to attempt to code this in each and every application, which is neither cost-effective nor practical for most businesses. For the first time, IT administrators will possess unparalleled ease of control over who can access the corporate network based on location or even limit access to specific materials. BIG-IP’s world-class geolocation capabilities are made possible in collaboration with F5 technology alliance partner Quova.

Expanded Library of Application Ready Templates for Rapid Deployment

With v10.1, F5 is further extending its lead in application fluency with the addition of two new application templates for SAP Dynamics and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Application Ready Templates have been pioneered by F5 and are developed with F5’s broad set of application partners. These templates simplify the creation of profiles, policies, and other configuration parameters needed to optimize application deployments across BIG-IP^® products and services. These cumulative advancements minimize deployment time for administrators and boost performance for end-users, reducing OpEx and streamlining application delivery.

"IDC finds that IT requires an ‘always on’ application delivery strategy that incorporates users, applications, and infrastructure,” said Lucinda Borovick, Research Vice President, Datacenter Networks at IDC. "F5 Networks’ BIG-IP v10.1 brings together a collection of features that enable IT to create a foundational infrastructure that supports ongoing datacenter consolidations and transformations while at the same time keeping up with end users' demands for capacity and quality-of-service expectations.”

"F5’s unique TMOS^® architecture platform gives our customers an adaptable framework to deploy market-leading application delivery services in a unified solution,” said Jason Needham, Sr. Director of Product Management at F5. "BIG-IP v10.1 provides a dynamic, context-aware environment that takes action based on the user’s identity, device, network conditions, and the application itself. For example, with BIG-IP Access Policy Manager, F5 is bringing user and group identity into the network that enables IT to make more intelligent secure access decisions. No other vendor in the market is able to match this degree of innovation and integration. The level of intelligence this release delivers helps customers realize unmatched performance gains, maximized security, cost savings, and IT agility.”

Availability

BIG-IP v10.1 software is available today. Product modules including BIG-IP Access Policy Manager, WAN Optimization Module, and others are also currently available. Geolocation services are integrated with F5’s TMOS platform starting with BIG-IP v10.1. New Application Ready Templates are available for no additional fee. For more information about BIG-IP solutions, please visit www.f5.com/products/big-ip/.

Additional Resources

• BIG-IP v10.1 Advanced ADC – SlideShare Presentation
• BIG-IP Version 10.1: An Integrated Application Delivery Architecture – White Paper
• Geolocation and Application Delivery – White Paper

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), focused on ensuring the secure, reliable, and fast delivery of applications. F5’s flexible architectural framework enables community-driven innovation that helps organizations enhance IT agility and dynamically deliver services that generate true business value. F5’s vision of unified application and data delivery offers customers an unprecedented level of choice in how they deploy ADN solutions. It redefines the management of application, server, storage, and network resources, streamlining application delivery and reducing costs. Global enterprise organizations, service and cloud providers, and Web 2.0 content providers trust F5 to keep their business moving forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

F5, BIG-IP, Access Policy Manager, APM, WAN Optimization Module, WOM, iRules, and TMOS are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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