F5 Networks' Newest Wide Area Traffic Management Solution Enables Enterprises to Meet Global e-Business Objectives.

Business Editors/Technology Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2002

3-DNS(R) Enables Continuity of IP Applications and Services in a

Distributed Environment; Offers a Strategic View of

Internet Performance With Exclusive Personal Internet Weather Map

F5 Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FFIV), the leading provider of Internet Traffic and Content Management (iTCM) products, today announced a new version of 3-DNS(R), the company's award-winning global traffic management solution that provides wide-area load balancing and high availability of IP applications and services running across multiple data centers.

3-DNS is the most sophisticated solution in its class, delivering exclusive features designed to support and enhance enterprises' globally distributed applications. New features of 3-DNS include: (1) a Personal Internet Weather Map that provides valuable measurements of Internet performance for each data center; (2) enhanced wide-area persistence that allows for application continuity across a distributed site deployment; (3) enhanced ECV (extended content verification) that ensures web content is available before users are routed to a site, and (4) customer topology mapping that offers a manageable, flexible system to easily manage where traffic is sent.

"3-DNS can make a significant difference on your organization's bottom line," said Dan Matte, senior director of product management at F5 Networks. "For example, most businesses have no way of measuring the relative effectiveness of the Internet for serving their users. Because the Internet is a dynamic, public network and users are distributed around the globe, it's difficult for organizations to accurately determine where to best deploy their resources. 3-DNS' Personal Internet Weather Map takes the guess-work away by giving customers a unique measurement of their user performance across the Internet to each data center in their network. This information can be leveraged to make smart and informed decisions on where to deploy resources and how to best serve targeted user groups."

F5's 3-DNS solution makes it possible for enterprises to align their globally distributed Internet sites with real world functionality and scalability to support their geographically diversified businesses. 3-DNS is the only wide-area Internet traffic management solution that is capable of this and is a strategic and vital tool for IT organizations managing IP applications and services across multiple sites.

Highlights of 3-DNS version 4.2

Personal Internet Weather Map - Displays a top-level summary of an organization's Internet performance from each defined user group to each of their data centers. The Personal Internet Weather Map enables organizations to: (1) identify the best location to deploy new resources; (2) identify network/configuration errors; and (3) evaluate a site's connectivity performance to the Internet.

Enhanced wide-area persistence - Provides continuity for applications and web services, since users are routed back to the same site regardless of the 3-DNS device they are directed to. 3-DNS offers the most extensive wide-area persistence capabilities on the market to ensure application continuity across a distributed site deployment.

Extensive content checking - Performs global checks to ensure web content is available before users are routed to a site. 3-DNS' enhanced Extended Content Verification (ECV) feature checks actual content strings; providing network administrators with more effective and powerful levels of availability checking for their web services. Custom topology mapping - Offers customers a manageable flexible, system for setting up custom topology mappings that mirror an organizations needs. Whether a CDN or an Enterprise, customers can identify and save custom groups one time and use these groups to easily manage where traffic is sent across their global resources

Availability

3-DNS version 4.2 is available now. Please contact your F5 representative or partner for pricing and upgrade information. 3-DNS can be ordered as a stand alone system or added as a software module to the BIG-IP(R) 5000, BIG-IP 2000, or the BIG-IP 540 products running v4.2 software.

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.

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