F5 Announces Windows '08 Network

LONDON -- F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced that it has extended its Application Ready Network (ARN) for Microsoft to include Windows Server 2008. Building on the previously announced solutions for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office Communications Server 2007, F5 is the only Application Delivery Networking vendor to offer validated, application-specific solutions to optimise end-to-end performance, availability, and scalability for key Microsoft applications.

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 is an advanced Windows Server-based operating system, designed to power the next-generation of networks, applications, and Web services. The F5(r) ARN for Windows Server 2008 will help enable enterprises achieve powerful deployment advantages, featuring support for the updated versions of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) and Terminal Services, as well as Microsoft technologies such as Windows PowerShell and SSTP (Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol).

With ARNs, F5 delivers the industry's most comprehensive application-specific products, tools, templates, and deployment guides to reduce the costs associated with application deployment, management, and operation. F5 ARNs offer step-by-step procedures with thorough deployment and application guides to help facilitate cooperation across organisations' application and networking groups, reducing the risk of missed deployment deadlines, over-budget projects, and failed or poorly adopted application deployments. Each ARN solution has been meticulously tested in F5's Technology Centre, with repeatable deployment configurations documented to enable customers to reap the benefits of F5's application delivery expertise.

"Application deployment and upgrades can be expensive and time-consuming tasks," said Zeus Kerravala, SVP of Enterprise Research at Yankee Group."Because each application interacts with the network in a unique way, particular network configurations may affect performance, availability, and so forth. With an ARN from F5 for applications like Microsoft Windows Server 2008, enterprises can tune their application delivery environments to optimise an application's interaction with the network and end-users, resulting in easier, less expensive, and ultimately more successful application roll-outs."

F5 Networks Inc.