Microsoft^® is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software-any time, any place and on any device.

F5 is the recognized leader in Application Delivery Networking. We provide solutions that make sure Microsoft applications are always secure, fast, and available.

F5's Application Ready Network is a holistic application network architecture and infrastructure designed specifically for the Microsoft Windows Server Systems Platform and related applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It functions as a simple overlay network built on the strengths and improvements Microsoft has implemented across the entire Windows portfolio. F5's Application Ready Network has been designed for removing the bottlenecks that put application deployments at risk and that are frequently outside the application's control. Instead it improves end-user client performance, creates an even stronger security posture, unifies access control and enforcement, and ensures the unlimited scalability of Microsoft applications. It has been designed for application developers, architects, and network professionals to leverage F5's network infrastructure resources as a reusable and open system creating a dynamic environment and providing the infrastructure flexibility for an organization evolving through Microsoft's Infrastructure Optimization Model.

The result is greater than a 10x performance improvement for Microsoft applications, up to 50% lower infrastructure and operational costs, simplified and unified security reducing errors, complexity and cost, 99.999 availability, and up to a 33% reduction in deployment time for Microsoft applications.

F5 is a globally managed partner out of Microsoft's Headquarters in Redmond, Washington. By collaborating with Microsoft, F5 is able to deliver highly available, fast and secure solutions for key Microsoft initiatives like Unified Communications and Collaboration, including Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Live Communications Server. F5 ensures its products work well with Microsoft products through our active involvement in Microsoft Technology Adoption Programs and beta programs.

All of F5 Network's IP Application Switches and networking products are .NET enabled. This means that applications and services, using Visual Studio and the .NET Framework, can "speak to" and influence the behavior of the network, both on a wide area and local area level. These services and applications can also extract critical network information in order to adjust their behavior via web services. The result is an integrated web application, services, and network environment that is highly available, scalable, performs optimally, and is secured-what F5 refers to as an application-aware network. This integrated architecture allows the network to be dynamically "tuned" based upon web application, services, and customer needs. Ultimately, the architecture represents the promise of web services: quickly and rapidly integrating different and distributed elements within an application and network architecture to make the applications work better, add more value to the customer's business, make employees more productive, and lower the total cost of ownership.