BorderWare Joins F5 iControl'TM' Alliance Partner Program.

Business Editors

LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 11, 2004

MXtreme and BIG-IP(R) Technology Integration Enhances High Availability, Introduces "Dynamic Application Security" for Messaging Infrastructure

NetWorld+Interop 2004, LVCC Booth 2603 - Network security solutions provider, BorderWare Technologies Inc., today announced a partnership agreement with F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the leading provider of Application Traffic Management products. Working under F5's iControl Alliance Partner Program, BorderWare is integrating its MXtreme Mail Firewall with F5's BIG-IP(R) Application Traffic Management solutions. As a result of the technology integration, the combination of BIG-IP and MXtreme delivers unprecedented levels of high availability and load optimization (HALO) for an enterprise's email infrastructure.

"Given the business-critical nature of email it is essential that enterprise messaging systems are highly available, secure and have the ability to scale as the business needs dictate," said Jim Ritchings, Vice President of Business Development at F5 Networks. "In today's world, messaging systems are under constant assault from bandwidth consuming scourges like spam and viruses. This reality is driving the need for even higher levels of availability and more robust security. The iControl integration between MXtreme and BIG-IP addresses both of these critical customer needs."

"The problem of spam, viruses and other attacks was created by technological advancements and technology will resolve the problem," said John Alsop, President and CEO, BorderWare Technologies Inc. "Today, no single company or product can solve the problem, but by collaborating and integrating our key enterprise infrastructure components, BorderWare and F5 are working to develop a more secure and reliable platform for email."

"For years, the industry has talked about building intelligent switches based on content from specific applications," said Matt Cain, Sr. Vice President, META Group. "This partnership is among the first to realize this vision for SMTP-based traffic, resulting in enhanced email security for end-user organizations."

A New Level of Email Reliability

F5's BIG-IP products are recognized as industry leaders in the delivery of comprehensive local and global traffic management solutions. Working through F5's iControl API an MXtreme cluster (i.e. two or more Mxtreme systems that act as a single logical unit) can ensure high availability and optimum load balancing by communicating information on email content and traffic load directly to a BIG-IP Application Switch. The result: SMTP traffic can be intelligently distributed across individual systems within the MXtreme cluster.

The high availability and load optimization functionality are two key pillars of BorderWare's new MXtreme HALO(TM) failsafe clustering architecture for high availability, which also includes "stateful failover", to ensure zero downtime, zero latency and zero message loss.

"Dynamic Application Security"

The current approach to spam and virus attacks is based on identifying specific content and developing a signature that is then distributed to a customer. While this remains the most effective method of network protection, it is a reactive approach. It cannot prevent spam, viruses, blended threats, DDoS or "zero-day" type of attacks from continuously flooding a corporate network. An alternative and complementary approach to dealing with such attacks is to recognize anomalous or aberrant behavior - such as sudden bursts of SMTP traffic from a spurious IP address or an influx of malformed messages - and to simply disallow that traffic at the switch.

Again, working through F5's iControl API, MXtreme can direct granular control of SMTP traffic allowing only selective traffic. When combined with MXtreme's built-in anti-spam and content filtering features, traffic identified as an attack can be immediately throttled down or completely eliminated.

BorderWare and F5 have co-authored a whitepaper - BorderWare's MXtreme and F5's BIG-IP: Ensuring High Availability and Load Optimization for Secure Email - that is available for download at: http://www.borderware.com/F5.

Further information is at: http://www.f5.com/solutions/iControl/partnerborderware.html.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks keeps IP-based traffic flowing and business information always available to any user from any device, anywhere in the world. Our products ensure secure and reliable access to servers and the applications that run on them. F5 also provides tools to automate communications between applications and the network, eliminating tedious, manual processes.

As the pioneers of intelligent load balancing, F5's continued innovations help businesses optimize and protect their IT investments. Our mission is to ensure the availability, scalability, performance, and security of IT resources that enterprises require to successfully do business. Over 6,000 enterprises and service providers rely on F5 solutions to keep their businesses running. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices worldwide. For more information go to www.f5.com.

About BorderWare

Founded in 1994, BorderWare Technologies Inc. is a leading provider of network security solutions for enterprises and government. The company's MXtreme Mail Firewall appliance installs at the network edge to deliver the most comprehensive perimeter security for an organization's email infrastructure. MXtreme protects against Denial-of-Service attacks like MyDoom, buffer overflows, directory harvesting, spam, viruses, and other vulnerabilities that could paralyze email communications. More than 1500 systems are deployed at various military, intelligence, defense, national security agencies, and corporations worldwide. BorderWare has affiliations and partnerships with some of the industry's most prominent companies in Internet infrastructure and security including Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems, F5 Networks, RSA Security, Research In Motion (RIM), Brightmail, Kaspersky Labs, and Network Engines.

BorderWare is a private company headquartered in Toronto, Canada with offices in London, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Dubai, Dallas, San Jose, and Washington DC. For more information visit http://www.borderware.com or call 1-877-814-7900.

(C) 2004 BorderWare Technologies Inc. All Rights Reserved. BorderWare, MXtreme and HALO are trademarks of BorderWare Technologies Inc. All other company and/or product names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective manufacturers.