A leader in financial services, Standard Life is also widely known in the technology sector for effective, forward-looking IT implementations. Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) is well-established at the heart of the company's IT strategy, allowing more effective information sharing within the organization and through customer communication channels, as well as more efficient business processes.

In developing the fourth generation of its SOA infrastructure platform, Standard Life wanted to implement an architecture that was fully fault-tolerant and had no scalability constraints, while delivering increased application protection.

F5's BIG-IP ASM solution was selected after a rigorous evaluation of available technology and a successful proof-of-concept. With F5 solutions at Standard Life, BIG-IP's powerful layer 7 load balancing capability becomes a key enabler of the SOA architecture, while the functionality of ASM supports compliance with PCI DSS, HIPAA, Basel II, and SOX regulations without the need for application changes or rewrites, or separate devices to perform different tasks.

Supporting Quotes

"Our vision for the next generation of our world-class SOA platform includes removing scalability barriers, increasing security, and maximizing service capabilities with minimal impact to the user experience," said Martin Symmers, SOA Enterprise Architect at Standard Life. "We concluded that, to deliver on our goals, we needed to implement powerful application-layer load balancing and security capabilities while minimizing infrastructure complexity."

"F5 Networks currently offers us the best fit for our requirements and has a track record that gives us the confidence to put their solution at the heart of our architecture," stated Joe Phillips, SOA Enterprise Architect at Standard Life.

"During the competitive evaluation, F5 came up against some very well-known companies, but the capabilities of ASM and the agile BIG-IP application delivery platform--coupled with Vistorm's strategic risk-based Complete Information Security approach--were the differentiators," commented Dan Turner, CTO at Vistorm. "The solution met all of Standard Life's core requirements and will be an effective base from which to launch further planned IT initiatives as well."

"We are delighted to have won the contract to serve Standard Life's infrastructure and application needs," said Mark Weir, Country Manager, Scotland at F5. "It underlines F5's leadership of the Application Delivery Controller marketplace, and is further evidence of F5's considerable success in the financial services sector."

Learn more about F5's solutions for the financial services industry by visiting www.f5.com/solutions/industry/financial.

About Standard Life

Standard Life is a major asset managing company headquartered in Edinburgh and operating across the globe. Established in 1825, Standard Life provides life assurance and pensions, investment management, banking and healthcare insurance products to over 6.5 million customers worldwide. The Group has around 10,000 employees across the U.K., Canada, Ireland, Germany, Austria, India, USA, Hong Kong, and mainland China. At the end of June 2009 the Group had total assets under administration of GBP 156.5bn.

Standard Life's diverse business includes one of the largest life and pensions businesses in the U.K. with more than 4 million customers; Standard Life Investments, which currently manages assets of over GBP 121.6bn globally and Standard Life Healthcare, a private medical insurance company which is one of the largest in the U.K.

On 10 July 2006, after 80 years as a mutual company, Standard Life Assurance Company demutualised and Standard Life plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange. Standard Life now has approximately 1.5 million individual shareholders in over 50 countries around the world.

About Vistorm, an EDS Company

Vistorm, an EDS Company, is an information security specialist with a history of pioneering solutions that are proven to deliver a measurable reduction in business risk and lower the long-term investment in information security.

We deliver this by structuring a strategic, end-to-end approach around the four most critical areas of the complete security lifecycle: Security Consulting, Programmes, Operations, and Governance. This way, we can engage with our clients at different stages and help them move through the cycle--from initial risk reviews or audits to the full management of significant parts of their Security Operations, and ultimately, to full Security Governance.

With full-service capabilities and unique Security Governance frameworks and toolsets--all supported by a comprehensive global Research and Development division--we deliver Complete Information Security for many of the world's most successful enterprise clients.

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, Local Traffic Manager, LTM, Application Security Manager, and ASM are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including those identified in the company's filings with the SEC.

SOURCE: F5 Networks, Inc.

F5 Networks, Inc. 
Alane Moran, 206-272-6850 
a.moran@f5.com 
or 
Connect Public Relations 
Holly Hagerman, 801-373-7888 
hollyh@connectpr.com

Details

-- F5 Application Ready Solution Support for Microsoft DirectAccess

Microsoft DirectAccess provides easier remote access to corporate resources with comprehensive management capabilities and integrated security enforcement, which allows IT departments to manage remote access at a lower cost. The F5 solution for DirectAccess enables enterprise customers to scale their deployments and enjoy the same benefits of other ADC-optimized applications. BIG-IP(R) Local Traffic Manager(TM) can proxy DirectAccess connections to ensure that users have quick access to the best-performing server resources, improving the performance and scalability of DirectAccess across multiple servers.

In addition, F5's customizable iRules(TM) commands enable IT organizations to ensure that specific client requests will be routed through the appropriate DirectAccess server. The specific iRule enabling this functionality is freely available in a recent DirectAccess-focused post on F5's user community site, DevCentral(SM). The post includes a description of how the iRule is used, what it does, and how to configure it. With iRules, IT organizations retain DirectAccess functionality in large deployments with multiple DirectAccess servers without compromising functionality or security.

-- F5 Application Ready Solution Support for Microsoft BranchCache

Branch office users are traditionally challenged by low bandwidth connections to the files and web content they need to accomplish their daily tasks. Low bandwidth results in long file download times and lost productivity. As a part of the Application Ready Solution for Windows Server 2008 R2, F5's support for BranchCache increases server capacity by offloading intensive computations used to alias web content requests from Windows 7 clients at branch locations.

This solution also functions as a transition technology to bring the benefits of BranchCache to all Windows 7 client users where web servers have not yet been upgraded to Windows Server 2008 R2. For servers not yet running Windows 2008 R2, the F5 solution provides the infrastructure visibility and intelligence necessary for those servers to participate in a BranchCache solution where Windows 7 clients are deployed, significantly reducing bandwidth consumption.

Supporting Quotes

"Microsoft's DirectAccess and BranchCache technologies highlight the business value of Windows 7 client and Windows Server 2008 R2 working together to provide new, transformational features that increase user productivity," said Mike Schutz, Director, Windows Server Marketing at Microsoft. "Mobile workers will realize tremendous productivity increases through anytime access, and businesses will lower their cost of delivering this access in a secure, manageable way using DirectAccess and BranchCache. F5's Application Ready Solutions amplify this value for end-users and corporate IT departments by providing tested, validated solutions to streamline application deployments."

"Application delivery and optimization for remote users is becoming a more common concern for IT departments," said Calvin Rowland, VP of Application Partner Programs at F5. "In order to ensure the productivity and connection of these employees, companies need to deploy applications and technologies to enable remote access just as they enable onsite access. F5 has worked closely with Microsoft to increase our solution base for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. F5 Application Ready Solutions provide customers with increased worker productivity, greater ROI for IT departments, increased confidence of solution interoperability, and enhanced scalability for faster, easier technology deployments."

Learn more about F5 and Microsoft solutions working together at www.f5.com/solutions/applications/microsoft.

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, Local Traffic Manager, DevCentral, and iRules are trademarks or service marks of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

This press release may contain forward looking statements relating to future events or future financial performance that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements can be identified by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," or the negative of such terms or comparable terms. These statements are only predictions and actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements based upon a number of factors including those identified in the company's filings with the SEC.

SOURCE: F5 Networks, Inc.

F5 Networks, Inc. 
Alane Moran, 206-272-6850 
a.moran@f5.com 
or 
Connect Public Relations 
Holly Hagerman, 801-373-7888 
hollyh@connectpr.com

SmarTrend is bullish on shares of FFIV and our subscribers received an Uptrend alert on September 04, 2009 at $37.30, which has returned 29.7% to date.

Write to Chip Brian at cbrian@tradethetrend.com

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F5 Networks uses Ixia test equipment exclusively in its F5 Technology Center in Seattle, Washington, where it conducts very large scale demonstrations and proof of concept validations for its customers. With its complement of Ixia Acceleron-NP and application stream module (ASM) load modules, F5 is able to verify the maximum performance of its ADC, including throughput, and layer 4 and 7 connections and transactions per second (TPS and CPS) as well as maximum concurrent connections.

"Ixia is the only performance test vendor to offer a solution for ADCs, particularly in the difficult SSL TPS and layer 4 connections per second benchmarks," said Mike Lowell, Director of Product Management Engineering at F5 Networks. "Testing ADCs requires best-of-breed layer 4-7 testing equipment, so naturally Ixia was our vendor of choice."

In the most recent demonstrations, F5 said each Acceleron-NP load module was capable of 760,000 layer 4 connections per second and 38,700 SSL transactions per second. Only two Acceleron-NP load modules were needed to match Viprion's 1 million layer 4 connections per second and four load modules to test Viprion's 155,000 SSL transactions per second.

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