Northwest Multiple Listing Service Selects F5 Networks BIG-IP Link Controller to Ensure Uninterrupted Uptime and Speedy Performance of Its Services

Business Wire, Dec 9, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 9, 2002

Largest real estate listing service in Northwest uses F5 solution to

establish cost-effective, manageable way to control site's traffic;

offers agents superior Quality of Service

F5 Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FFIV), the leading provider of Application Traffic Management solutions, today announced that the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) has chosen F5 Networks' BIG-IP(R) Link Controller solution to guarantee high availability and speedy performance of their business-critical real estate services.

"We have 1,427 Real Estate Brokers and 14,000 sales associates using our services for property listings, market analysis, CMA, zoning and tax information on a broad range of properties," said Jack Johnson, President & CEO, Northwest Multiple Listing Service. "The Real Estate Brokers' and sales associates' livelihood and success really depends upon the availability and performance of our services. That's why we chose to work with F5. By using the BIG-IP Link Controller, we're able to meet our goal of providing our clients with `always-on', fast, and easy access to information -- anytime, anywhere -- in the most economical way."

F5's BIG-IP(R) Link Controller provides a solution for enterprises that wish to increase their availability and performance of Internet connectivity. The product offers a comprehensive solution to provide reliable network connections, manage inbound/outbound traffic over multiple links, send traffic over the best performing link, increase scalability and throughput of links, and eliminate deployment barriers and costs of multi-homing with BGP (Border Gateway Protocol). "Call volume, related to slowness from inefficient management of multiple Internet connections using BGP, was significantly reduced after implementing F5's BIG-IP Link Controller," added Johnson. "The product solved our bandwidth management problems immediately."

"The NWMLS provides an essential and valuable service to real estate agents, as well as property owners and buyers throughout our entire region, and we're pleased to be part of their success," said Erik Giesa, senior director of product management and marketing at F5 Networks. "As enterprises increase their use of the Internet to deliver their mission-critical applications, maintaining only one link to the public network represents a single point of failure and serious network vulnerability. F5 offers customers an easy-to-deploy solution that helps customers like the NWMLS to effectively address this issue, while keeping costs down."

About F5 Networks

F5 Networks is the industry leader in Application Traffic Management, enabling enterprises and service providers to optimize any mission-critical application or web service, providing secure and predictable delivery of application traffic in an unpredictable environment. Through F5's unique open iControl(TM) API, third party applications and network devices can take an active role in shaping network traffic, delivering application aware networks that allow customers to direct traffic based on their exact business requirements. Our solutions optimize the availability, security and speed of mission-critical servers and applications, including enterprise applications, web services, mobile IP applications, web publishing, content delivery, e-commerce, caching, firewalls and more. F5's solutions are widely deployed in large enterprises, the top service providers, financial institutions, government agencies, healthcare, and portals throughout the world. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and has offices throughout North America, Europe Japan and Asia Pacific. F5 Networks is located on the web at www.f5.com.

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