F5 Networks Will Ship global/SITE Controller for Data Management of Distributed Internet Servers.

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 4, 1999--

A convenient, cost-effective way to manage the publishing,

distribution, and replication of file-based content and applications

to local and geographically distributed Internet sites

F5 Networks, Inc., (Nasdaq:FFIV), a leading provider of Internet Traffic Management (ITM) products, today announced that the global/SITE(tm) Controller is scheduled to ship later this month.

global/SITE is an operating system-independent appliance that manages the publishing, distribution, synchronization and replication of file-based content and applications. global/SITE is a unique, patent-pending global data management solution that reduces the total cost of ownership for organizations that need to manage local and geographically distributed Internet sites. global/SITE complements F5 Networks' family of high availability, intelligent load balancing controllers and network monitoring tools.

"As the largest newspaper in Washington state, where our online presence is vital to our business, we found it extremely challenging to keep all of our sites replicated," said Margaret McDonald, Senior Network Systems Analyst at The Seattle Times. "We evaluated different alternatives, but determined that an Internet appliance approach like global/SITE is the most sensible option, since it effectively handles our replication needs without the costly overhead of loading additional software on each server. We also anticipate that global/SITE will play a key role in our co-location plans for disaster recovery purposes."

"Through careful understanding of our customers' requirements, we saw a growing need for a more practical and cost-effective means of replicating content and applications across geographically dispersed Internet sites and heterogeneous servers," said Steve Goldman, Senior Vice President of Sales, Service and Support at F5 Networks. "Our customers are excited about global/SITE, which provides them with extensive manageability and control of content throughout their entire business-critical Internet installation worldwide."

Organizations that collaboratively publish content on their Internet sites can use global/SITE to hold changing information in a staging repository and easily replicate final delivery across all servers, at one or more sites, regardless of location. F5 Networks has filed for a patent on global/SITE's method and system for identifying changed files, versioning them and delivering them to content servers. global/SITE uses "intelligent replication" so only files with changes are sent, reducing network traffic. global/SITE's appliance-based approach affords businesses easier implementation over other alternatives and significantly lowers the total cost of ownership through these key features:

-- Global content replication -- global/SITE uses patent-pending

technology to create an effective means of transferring data from

one global/SITE controller to another, increasing overall

efficiency of moving data over the Internet.

-- Version control -- Saves changes while providing access to prior

versions and synchronizes the data accordingly, giving publishers

the complete history of information.

-- Site recovery and rollback -- Web publishers can immediately

select any previous edition to be republished to production Web

servers.

-- Supports flexible source to target directory mappings -- Any file

from a directory can be placed in any other directory, since

global/SITE does not require the same directory structure on the

source and target servers.

-- Extensive event logging -- global/SITE captures each step

involved in replicating content from the source server(s) all the

way through to the production server(s).

-- Security over wide area -- global/SITE encrypts all information

traveling over the Internet between two global/SITE servers.

-- Browser-based GUI with security -- System administrators can

publish jobs from anywhere, anyplace, securely through SSL.

-- On-screen status -- Enables web publishers to easily gauge the

completion status of a particular replication event.

global/SITE Controller highlights:

-- Application and Content Synchronization

-- Server OS independence

-- Licensed by site, not by servers

-- No need to install software on each server

-- Reduces network traffic by sending only files with changes

-- Y2K compliant

-- Lowers total cost of ownership for e-business infrastructure

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is a leading provider of integrated Internet traffic management solutions designed to improve the availability and performance of mission-critical Internet-based servers and applications. These products monitor and manage local and geographically dispersed servers and devices, intelligently directing traffic to the server best able to handle a user's request. F5 Networks' solutions are designed to help prevent system failure, provide timely responses to user requests and data flow, and cost-effectively manage an organization's Internet infrastructure. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Wash., and has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., Australia, England, Japan, The Netherlands and Singapore. F5 Networks is located on the Web at www.f5.com.

F5 Networks (Nasdaq:FFIV) Internet Traffic Management products support a wide range of operating systems and hardware platforms including those from: Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW), Hewlett Packard (NYSE:HWP), Compaq (NYSE:CPQ), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT), Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL), IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Intel (Nasdaq:INTC). F5 products work with leading IP-based applications, including legacy host, mainframe, Java, CORBA-based and client/server applications from vendors such as SAP (NYSE:SAP), BAAN (Nasdaq:BAANF), Novell (Nasdaq:NOVL), Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL) and PeopleSoft (Nasdaq:PSFT).

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.

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