MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif & SEATTLE - December 5, 2001 - Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the leading provider of Internet Traffic and Content Management (iTCM) solutions, today announced the availability of Nokia BIG-IP® solutions. This announcement is the initial milestone of the Nokia/F5 alliance formed earlier this year. The objective of the alliance is to jointly develop and deliver more efficient ways to manage and control the unique network security and traffic management challenges facing organizations today, and for the mobile network environments of tomorrow. The Nokia BIG-IP solutions announced today include the Nokia BIG-IP FireGuard, Nokia BIG-IP HA+, and the Nokia BIG-IP 5000 appliances.
These offerings combine innovative products and support services to manage and optimize server availability and performance, ensuring that applications and servers respond quickly and with the correct content. Nokia BIG-IP application server and application switch solutions increase the speed at which users can access corporate data assets by intelligently load balancing user requests through multiple firewalls and across web server arrays. To eliminate single points of failure, Nokia BIG-IP appliances detect firewall, server, or application failures and redirect traffic to working devices, ensuring maximum performance and efficiency.
The Nokia BIG-IP appliances maximize return on investment for customers by enabling them to handle more traffic and achieve greater efficiencies with their existing infrastructure. For maximum availability, Nokia BIG-IP solutions can be deployed in redundant pairs to provide for additional fault-tolerance with automatic fail-over in less than 1 second. This combination of intelligent traffic management, performance, reliability and security will be especially important when considering the future content and security needs of wireless network environments. Nokia and F5 will be at the forefront, providing innovative and superior support for the mobile workforce.
"As we see access to network based content increasing in both the mobile and wired workforce, the need to ensure that access is both secure, authenticated and directed to the most appropriate resource is paramount in order to maintain the best user experience," said John Robinson, senior vice president and general manager, Nokia Internet Communications. "Traffic and Content Management are key components of Nokia's vision of enabling secure, trusted communications and we look forward to continued collaboration with such an exciting and innovative company as F5."
"F5 is pleased to be working with Nokia to roll out its new family of BIG-IP solutions," said John McAdam, president and CEO, F5 Networks. "Together, we're expanding our global reach and offering performance-leading solutions that address the critical needs of customers today. The availability of the Nokia BIG-IP solution offerings mark just the beginning of our promising partnership and we're excited about our continued progress in developing innovative solutions that will fuel the next generation of mobile networking."
Nokia BIG-IP appliances often sit between the network and a cluster of firewall devices and/or between the firewall and the server farm. Continuously monitoring each destination device, these appliances deliver optimum availability and performance, while appropriately forwarding traffic to the most available device. With the Nokia BIG-IP products, enterprise and managed service providers can efficiently extend existing device capacity through increased performance and automated administration. Deploying new devices in the network or performing routine maintenance can occur without interruption to service and without requiring manual intervention, therefore maximizing uptime and reducing additional resource requirements.
Nokia BIG-IP products will begin shipping in January 2002 in the U.S., Canada, EU, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. For more information on Nokia BIG-IP solutions, please visit www.nokia.com/securenetworksolutions.
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About Nokia Internet Communications
Nokia Internet Communications, headquartered in Mountain View, California, provides world class Network Security and Virtual Private Network solutions that ensure the security and reliability of corporate enterprise and managed service provider networks. Nokia is committed to enhancing the end user experience by bringing a new level of security and reliability to the network, enabling an Internet transaction that is personal and trusted -- each and every time. For more information, please visit http://www.nokia.com and click on Secure Network Solutions.
About Nokia
Nokia is the world leader in mobile communications. Backed by its experience, innovation, user-friendliness and secure solutions, the company has become the leading supplier of mobile phones and a leading supplier of mobile, fixed and IP networks. By adding mobility to the Internet Nokia creates new opportunities for companies and further enriches the daily lives of people. Nokia is a broadly held company with listings on six major exchanges.
About F5 Networks
F5 Networks is the leader in Internet Traffic and Content Management (iTCM), and delivers application aware networks through its open Internet Control Architecture. F5 features the industry's leading set of integrated products and services that manage, control and optimize Internet traffic and content. Our solutions automatically and intelligently deliver the best possible Internet performance, availability and content distribution for service providers, enterprises and e-businesses. Our products remove bandwidth congestion and optimize the availability and speed of mission-critical Internet servers and applications, including web publishing, content delivery, e-commerce, caching, firewalls and more. Our 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 and Asia Pacific. F5 Networks is located on the web at www.f5.com.
Further information (Media and Industry Analysts only please):
Nokia Internet Communications:
Americas (California based)
Laurie Armstrong tel. + 1 650 625 2424 or laurie.armstrong@nokia.com
EMEA (UK based)
Claire Backhurst tel. +44 7788 145460 or claire.backhurst@nokia.com
APAC (Singapore based)
Bonnie Datta tel. +6597389743 or bonnie.datta@nokia.com
F5 Networks:
Alane Moran, F5 Networks, Inc. Seattle, WA
tel: + 1 206 272 6850 or a.moran@f5.com
EMEA: Grace Cheung, +44 1784497218 or g.cheung@f5.com
Singapore: Ann O'Rourke, 65 533 6103 or aorourke@f5.com
Tokyo: Kayo Kuramochi, 011 81 3 5766 5517or k.kuramochi@f5.com
www.nokia.com
Nokia and F5 Networks Partnership Delivers Industry-Leading Internet Traffic Management Solutions
| Source: Nokia Oyj