F5's BIG-IP Solution Enables Service Providers to Transparently Scale and Grow Mobile Services

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), today announced improved solutions for service providers to efficiently meet the growing demand for mobile services. The F5^® BIG-IP^® 10.1 release offers a new approach to mobile infrastructure scaling, enabling service providers and system integrators to benefit from layer 7 traffic management for their authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) infrastructure, without incurring the costly and time-consuming process of replacing existing AAA servers.

As mobile subscribers use more services, existing AAA servers become overloaded and strain to handle the traffic loads. BIG-IP v10.1 allows service providers to protect services from unplanned outages, and enables carriers to optimize traffic throughput on current AAA servers-achieving better resource utilization and higher availability. Additionally, the BIG-IP solution gives carriers the flexibility needed to maintain and scale existing services while preparing for increased traffic loads brought on by next-generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 4G wireless network traffic.

Key benefits of BIG-IP v10.1 for service providers and systems integrators include:

• Support for Diameter and RADIUS protocols - New traffic profiles and monitors specifically for Diameter and RADIUS traffic allow service providers to take advantage of the benefits of layer 7 traffic management-including load balancing, inspection, redirection, high availability, and simplified scaling-for their AAA infrastructure.
• On-demand capacity to handle highest levels of traffic - To help carriers manage massive volumes of revenue-generating traffic, F5 is introducing PB 200 blades for its VIPRION^® chassis. VIPRION and PB 200 blades provide the throughput needed today as well as a simple method for adding on-demand capacity to future-proof a carriers' infrastructure.
• Carrier-class availability with Fast Failover - New failover methods use a combination of metrics to determine when to switch to the standby unit, and reduce the failover time to fractions of a second. Fast Failover, combined with new monitors and carrier-grade hardware, can significantly reduce downtime.
• Seamless strategy for staging network migration as IPv6 traffic grows - The BIG-IP^® IPv6 Gateway^™ feature ensures a carriers' ability to leverage the scalability of IPv6 for all their mobile devices, while still connecting to legacy IPv4 networks.
• Total traffic control with iRules - F5's powerful event-driven programming language, iRules^™, allows system integrators to integrate BIG-IP into their total solution, providing advanced, customized traffic management, such as policy-based traffic steering.

Supporting Quotes

"F5 has a long history of helping wireless carriers manage traffic and optimize infrastructures, with BIG-IP being deployed in many of the top wireless carriers today," said Jason Needham, Sr. Director of Product Management at F5. "BIG-IP v10.1 further extends F5's ability to help service providers scale their IP infrastructures to handle the massive throughput demands of wireless customers and support policy-based traffic steering."

"3G data growth is accelerating with no end in sight, and the 4G outlook is for continued rapid IP services growth," said John Mazur, Ovum Principal Analyst for Switching, Routing and Packet Transport. "To manage this growth, mobile operators need advanced policy control and traffic management solutions to meet customers' quality of experience expectations and monetize their networks. Advanced subscriber management platforms provide the tools needed to ensure manageable traffic and revenue growth."

Availability

BIG-IP version 10.1 will be available in December 2009. To learn more about F5's BIG-IP solutions, please visit www.f5.com/products/big-ip.

Additional Resources

• Scaling Mobile Infrastructures with BIG-IP Solutions - SlideShare presentation
• Message-Based Load Balancing: Scaling Diameter, RADIUS, and Message-Oriented Protocols - White Paper

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), focused on ensuring the secure, reliable, and fast delivery of applications. F5's flexible architectural framework enables community-driven innovation that helps organizations enhance IT agility and dynamically deliver services that generate true business value. F5's vision of unified application and data delivery offers customers an unprecedented level of choice in how they deploy ADN solutions. It redefines the management of application, server, storage, and network resources, streamlining application delivery and reducing costs. Global enterprise organizations, service and cloud providers, and Web 2.0 content providers trust F5 to keep their business moving forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

F5, BIG-IP, VIPRION, iRules, and IPv6 Gateway are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.