F5 Networks Maximizes the Benefits of Windows Terminal Server for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Customers.

Business Editors

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 24, 2003

F5's BIG-IP(R) product ensures highly reliable client connections

to Microsoft's Windows Terminal Server 

F5 Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the leading provider of Application Traffic Management solutions, today announced support for Microsoft's Windows Terminal Server (WTS), a key component of Windows Server 2003, announced today by Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT). By deploying F5's BIG-IP(R) product with Microsoft's Windows Terminal Server, customers are ensured highly reliable client connections and an optimized, load balanced environment for Microsoft WTS.

"The Windows Server 2003 family takes the best of Windows Server 2000 technology and includes all the functionality customers expect from an integrated, mission-critical server platform," said Mike Schutz, Technical Product Manager, Windows Server Product Management Group, Microsoft Corp. "Customers will benefit by the degree of capabilities and level of integration that we've developed with F5 Networks. F5's BIG-IP product further augments users' Windows Server 2003 infrastructure by providing enhanced network system efficiencies for managing traffic and ensuring even more reliable reconnection between clients and servers."

Support for WTS persistence and the Session Directory feature of Windows Server 2003 is included in all BIG-IP products and provides an efficient way of managing traffic and maintaining persistent connections between Window clients and servers that are running Microsoft's Windows Terminal Server. The BIG-IP device efficiently load balances and maintains persistent connections between Terminal Server clients and servers and also performs health monitoring for Windows servers that are running various services. For example, the BIG-IP health monitoring feature provides useful data on CPU, memory, and disk utilization of Windows Management Interface (WMI) servers, to ensure the most efficient load balancing of traffic to those servers.

"F5 can offer customers a tactical business advantage in deploying highly available Windows Terminal Server clusters" said Joel Conover, Principal Analyst Enterprise Systems and Solutions, Current Analysis, Inc. "By leveraging the performance and resource utilization information provided by the Windows Server 2003 platform, F5's BIG-IP provides a higher level of reliability and more accurate application traffic management through its ability to maintain persistent connections between clients and servers. And, the BIG-IP can measure the available resources reported by the operating system and include this information when load balancing."

"F5 is pleased to be a part of the biggest operating system launch in Microsoft's history," said Jim Ritchings, Vice President of Business Development at F5 Networks. "Microsoft has improved and extended the Windows server operating system to enable organizations to experience the benefits of Microsoft .NET, which F5 fully supports today. Customers who deploy F5's BIG-IP product with Windows Server 2003 and Windows Terminal Server, will maximize their investment by allowing them to enjoy enterprise-quality deployments of WTS."

Availability

Support for Microsoft's Windows Terminal Server for Windows Server 2003 comes standard with BIG-IP version 4.5 software and is available today.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the industry leader in Application Traffic Management, enabling enterprises and service providers to optimize any mission-critical application or Web service, providing secure and predictable delivery of application traffic in an unpredictable environment. Through F5's unique open iControl(TM) API, third party applications and network devices can take an active role in shaping network traffic, delivering application aware networks that allow customers to direct traffic based on their exact business requirements. Our solutions optimize the availability, security and speed of mission-critical servers and applications, including enterprise applications, Web services, mobile IP applications, Web publishing, content delivery, e-commerce, caching, firewalls and more. F5's 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, Japan 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.

Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.