AmberPoint Announces Integration With F5 Networks; Combination of Leading Application Delivery Networking Product and SOA Runtime Governance Software Helps Organizations to Meet SOA Performance Objectives.

SAN DIEGO -- AmberPoint today announced that it has completed integration of its leading service oriented architecture (SOA) runtime governance software with BIG-IP(R) Application Delivery Networking solutions from F5 Networks (NASDAQ:FFIV). As a result of this integration, organizations can implement a multi-tiered approach to SOA policy management and enforcement, bringing greater agility, performance and control to evolving services-based systems. The integration was done using F5's iControl(R) API, a unique open standards-based SOAP/XML API, which is part of BIG-IP's underlying TMOS architecture.

"SOA brings new challenges to ensuring system performance, availability and security," said Calvin Rowland, Director of Business Development at F5 Networks. "In order to achieve services-based networks that are both agile and trustworthy, organizations must use policies that reflect real-time conditions and meet defined business objectives. The streamlined integration of AmberPoint and F5 products underscores the power of F5's iControl API. BIG-IP delivers real value in SOA environments through its ability to quickly process any application or Web service, ensuring quick response times, reliable sessions, easy scalability, and application-level security."

Integrated Capabilities

As a result of the integration of AmberPoint SOA Management System and F5's BIG-IP product, organizations can achieve the following capabilities:

--Comprehensive Policy Enforcement: F5's BIG-IP enforces policies for performance and availability, while AmberPoint focuses on enforcing such things as services level agreements and exception management policies.

--Policy Discovery and Visibility: AmberPoint auto-discovers and provides visibility into routing policies that are enforced by F5, thus enabling users to understand the impact these policies have on the SOA system.

--Bidirectional Policy Exchange: AmberPoint allows SOA managers to tailor the routing policies executed by F5 so that they best meet SOA performance objectives, based on the real-time behavior of the system. Users have the flexibility of specifying policy changes in either interface, F5 or AmberPoint.

--Unified SOA Management: Companies can manage the entirety of their SOA environments with a single set of runtime governance policies, rather than using individualized policies for each component type (application server, router, enterprise service bus, etc.).

Benefits

--Streamlined management of distributed, heterogeneous SOA systems

--Greater business agility as a result of creating and maintaining a single set of governance policies

--Faster time to ROI for SOA deployments

"We've seen customers grow their SOA systems significantly in recent years," said John Hubinger, AmberPoint CEO. "To avoid the growing pains that can mount quickly when working with rapidly evolving services-based networks, these companies seek ways to ensure the performance and availability of their systems, while also monitoring and controlling a variety of distributed application components. A policy-based approach is the answer, and the integrated capabilities of F5 and AmberPoint transforms this approach into tangible, business-driving implementations."

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking. F5 provides solutions that make applications secure, fast and available for everyone, helping organizations get the most out of their investment. By adding intelligence and manageability into the network to offload applications, F5 optimizes applications and allows them to work faster and consume fewer resources. F5's extensible architecture intelligently integrates application optimization, protects the application and the network, and delivers application reliability -- all on one universal platform. Over 10,000 organizations and service providers worldwide trust F5 to keep their applications running. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices worldwide. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

About AmberPoint

AmberPoint is the industry's leading provider of SOA visibility, management and security solutions. Customers such as British Telecommunications, H&R Block, Motorola and the U.S. Department of Defense have chosen AmberPoint for its comprehensive capabilities, its non-invasive approach and its native support for Java and .NET. For more information, contact AmberPoint at 510-663-6300 or [e-mail], or visit www.amberpoint.com for a complimentary developer's edition of AmberPoint software.