Illinois State University Gains Unprecedented Network Visibility and Application Control With Packeteer PacketShapers.

Leading University Classifies and Prioritizes Network Traffic, Optimizes Application Performance

CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Packeteer([R]) (NASDAQ:PKTR), the global leader in WAN Application Optimization, today announced that Illinois State University (ISU), the first public university in the state of Illinois and one of the Midwest's oldest institutions of higher education, is deploying multiple PacketShaper[TM] appliances to identify, prioritize and control application-specific traffic operating on its wide area network. With the ability to discover new applications that frequently emerge on the university network with the PacketShaper's monitoring tools, ISU can immediately classify all network traffic and enforce specific amounts of bandwidth based on the criticality of individual applications that are designated to bronze, silver, copper and gold categories

As a residential university with an emphasis on undergraduate study, ISU maintains an enrollment in excess of 20,000 students, 6,700 of which are housed in residence halls where high-speed Ethernet connectivity to the campus network is provided. The trigger for seeking a WAN application optimization solution can be traced to the rapid emergence and widespread use of Napster[TM] in 2000. As increasing numbers of students used Napster to download music files, application performance on the university network suffered, impacting business critical applications such as distance learning and key services that are required to run university operations.

In an attempt to throttle bandwidth consumed by Napster, ISU initially evaluated Cisco's network based application recognition (NBAR) technology to classify peer-to-peer traffic. According to Scott Genung, interim director for telecommunications and networking at ISU, "There were several shortcomings with NBAR at the time, mainly the need for custom macros to identify new applications. Unfortunately, we couldn't write our own macros and there were no deep packet inspection capabilities. This really posed a problem since we began to see traffic masquerading as a Port 80 application which could not be effectively detected. And in a university environment, new applications are constantly appearing which requires a dynamic traffic classification tool to accurately identify current applications while providing us with visibility into emerging applications."

The need for a tool that provided application visibility and control led ISU to deploy Packeteer PacketShapers in 2001. Today, that need is as critical as it has ever been due to the growing population of systems (now in excess of 18,000 nodes) competing for resources on the university network. Because PacketShapers provide highly granular traffic monitoring capabilities that can identify over 500 classes of applications, ISU can easily enforce policies that assign application-specific traffic to its bronze, silver, copper, and gold categories. "Prior to deploying PacketShapers, we had very little visibility into what kind of traffic we had running on our network," said Genung. "Since installing PacketShapers, we have the means to discover what applications are consuming critical Internet resources in order to develop and evolve traffic shaping policies as our needs dictate."

Because of its application discovery capabilities, the PacketShapers provide ISU with the added benefit of identifying anomalous traffic patterns to pinpoint the source of security threats such as viruses that can be quickly quarantined. "This is a cat and mouse game," explains Genung. "We constantly review our network traffic reports to ensure our policies are producing the desired results. Each application behaves differently in terms of bandwidth consumption and we have to be vigilant in making sure we maintain the quality-of-service that we have defined for each application class to meet the ever changing needs of our students, faculty, and staff."

In 2006, ISU once again selected PacketShapers after evaluating alternative solutions from Ellacoya and F5. "The PacketShaper's application classification capabilities proved to be superior to the alternatives we evaluated," said Genung. As a result, ISU has purchased the latest generation of PacketShaper products to ensure that the current strategy of segregating applications based on the mission critical priorities set by the institution is viable now and into the future.

This approach ensures that business critical applications such as video conferencing-based coursework receive the appropriate level of network resources needed to operate effectively. This and many other mission critical applications are assigned to the gold class of service. Recreational peer-to-peer traffic has been successfully relegated to a bronze class of service where bandwidth is appropriately constrained to protect other classes of service. Legal forms of music and movie distributions have been assigned to the copper category to provide a higher level of service than bronze applications. All other known applications are associated with the silver category that receive greater resources than copper and bronze.

About Illinois State University

Founded in 1857, Illinois State University is a nationally recognized institution of higher education, was the first public university in the state and one of the oldest in the Midwest. It is a residential university whose emphasis is on undergraduate study. All benefit from "the small-school feeling they get from this large university" (Yale Daily News). Its 34 academic departments in six colleges offer 66 undergraduate programs in more than 160 fields of study. The Graduate School coordinates 39 masters, two specialist, and eight doctoral programs. For more information, visit Illinois State University's web site at http://www.ilstu.edu.

About Packeteer

Packeteer, Inc. (NASDAQ:PKTR), is the global market leader in WAN Optimization and Application Traffic Management for wide area networks. Deployed at more than 7,000 companies in 50 countries, Packeteer solutions empower IT organizations with patented network visibility, control, and acceleration capabilities delivered through a family of intelligent, scalable appliances. For more information, contact Packeteer at [phone] or visit the company's website at http://www.packeteer.com.

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The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, including statements regarding Packeteer's expectations, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, express or implied statements regarding future revenues, revenue growth and profitability, spending levels by existing and prospective customers, the markets for our products, new product development, liquidity and macro economic conditions. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are based upon information available to Packeteer as of the date hereof. Packeteer assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Actual results may differ materially due to a number of factors including the perceived need for our products, our ability to convince potential customers of our value proposition, the costs of competitive solutions, continued capital spending by prospective customers and macro economic conditions. These and other risks relating to Packeteer's business are set forth in Packeteer's Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 16, 2006, and Packeteer's Form 10-Qs and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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