F5 Delivers the Highest Performing 10 Gb Application Delivery Platform to the Market

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced its new performance-leading BIG-IP^® 8400 platform. Catering to the needs of large enterprises, telecommunication companies, and service providers, the product is the only unified Application Delivery platform that can deliver 10 Gbps of throughput for Layer 4 (L4) traffic. The BIG-IP 8400 is designed to meet the needs of organizations with extremely high traffic volumes. It enables data center consolidation by collapsing multiple devices into a single easy-to-manage application delivery system without compromising performance.

"With 10 Gbps of load balancing throughput, the BIG-IP 8400 clearly differentiates itself from vendors trying to compete in the high-end market," said Hiroshi Osuga, operating officer and general manager for the Network Security Sales Division of Techmatrix Corporation. "Other vendors put 10-Gigabit ports on the front of their boxes, but cannot actually deliver on their performance claims. We see the BIG-IP 8400 as being the only application delivery networking solution able to actually meet our stringent demands. Techmatrix believes the BIG-IP 8400 delivers outstanding performance, provides comprehensive control of mission-critical data, and will greatly improve the efficiency of our business, including online services."

BIG-IP 8400 Offers the Industry's Best Performance

The BIG-IP 8400 represents the new class of emerging application delivery platforms from F5 designed to address the most demanding processing needs. The BIG-IP 8400 is able to achieve industry-best L4 performance through F5's 3rd generation custom-developed Packet Velocity ASIC 10 (PVA 10). The BIG-IP 8400 also delivers the highest levels of SSL and compression performance over any other product in the market and includes integrated DoS attack protection. The BIG-IP 8400 demonstrated 2x to 5x performance gains across all functions when compared with competing products.

"BIG-IP has been selected as a standard across many of the largest and most demanding ecommerce, enterprise and service provider sites," said Jason Needham, Director of Product Management at F5. "Many of these customers require an unprecedented level of performance as they build out their infrastructures to support new services such as VoIP (SIP), Triple Play, and XML. The 8400 empowers their services to be delivered more efficiently and cost effectively, while helping some of our largest customers transform their networks into a competitive advantage for their business."

"Application Networking solutions have made the transition from tactical to strategic by providing intelligent network services to the datacenter," said Lucinda Borovick, IDC. "With the new BIG-IP 8400 leveraging TMOS, F5 continues to meet customer requirements by delivering a 10 Gb system that can support next-generation data centers."

The BIG-IP 8400 platform delivers an unmatched level of performance, flexibility, and reliability that the largest organizations can trust. The 8400 includes:

• Three specialized ASICs accelerate all types of intelligent traffic decisions including load balancing, SSL, and HTTP compression.
• Dual CPUs for market-leading L7 and iRules performance.
• A dedicated management computer for improved security and remote lights-out management.
• Port flexibility to accommodate 12 GbE ports (copper or fiber) and two 10 GbE ports (XFP Pluggable Optics).
• A multiple version image boot system supports separate compact flash and hard drive for improved reliability and flexibility for logging.

Availability

The F5 BIG-IP 8400 platform is available immediately. For more information on the 8400, visit http://www.f5.com/products/hardware/big-ip.html.

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking. F5 provides solutions that make applications secure, fast, and available for everyone, helping organizations get the most out of their investment. By adding intelligence and manageability into the network to offload applications, F5 optimizes applications and allows them to work faster and consume fewer resources. F5's extensible architecture intelligently integrates application optimization, protects the application and the network, and delivers application reliability - all on one universal platform. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices worldwide. Additional information about F5 is available on the company's website (www.f5.com) and in its SEC filings.