[February 21, 2012]

F5 Enables Secure Mobile Device Management Solutions

F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced the expansion of the company's partner ecosystem, focused on addressing explosive demand for secure mobile access to enterprise applications and network resources. By combining the power of mobile device management (MDM) solutions from AirWatch, MobileIron, SilverbackMDM, and Zenprise, with F5's mobile access solution, enterprises reduce mobility deployment and management costs and gain unparalleled security and control.

Unifying Secure Mobile Access with Enterprise Mobility Management

F5's mobile user access solution, which comprises BIG-IP^® Access Policy Manager™ (APM (News - Alert)™), BIG-IP Edge Gateway™ , and BIG-IP^® Edge Client^®, provides secure, high-performance access to enterprise resources. By partnering with leading MDM vendors, F5 extends mobile access policy enforcement from LAN networks and wireless connections to smartphones with its unified enterprise mobility solution.

Customers can deploy F5's mobile user access solution with offerings from AirWatch, MobileIron, SilverbackMDM, Zenprise, and others, to support the latest mobile operating system (OS) controls for Apple iOS, Google Android, and Microsoft (News - Alert) Windows Mobile. Enterprises benefit through simplified deployments for managed and unmanaged devices, while gaining end-to-end security and centralized management.

In addition, when F5's mobile user access solution is coupled with MDM offerings, organizations are able to extend full VPN (virtual private network) and route control capabilities for enterprise users. This enables IT to enforce appropriate routing restrictions for users who access applications behind the corporate firewall.

"Today and into the future, mobility represents a huge opportunity for organizations, but it will always create anxiety for IT due to security concerns," said Calvin Rowland, VP, Technology and ISV Alliances at F5 Networks. "By integrating our mobile offerings with leading MDM vendors' solutions, F5 enables enterprises to secure and manage access to enterprise applications. Now enterprises can enforce network policies from the mobile device through the entire network."

Through F5's expanded MDM ecosystem, organizations realize the following benefits.

• End-to-end policy and management controls. F5's mobile offering ensures security and provides combined access and device control. Organizations can leverage the advanced Visual Policy Editor in BIG-IP APM to create, deploy, and manage device policies, as well as the F5 iRules^® scripting language to interact in real time with MDM solutions to verify mobile device registrations. Using F5 iControl^®, an open standards-based API, real-time publications from MDM solutions can be received and acted upon, ensuring that administrators can revoke user access automatically and immediately as policies or access rights change.
• Unified access approach. By simplifying access designs and security policies, F5's mobile offering reduces costs and improves performance. BIG-IP APM integrates disparate technologies such as MDM, VPN, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to provide greater control of the entire infrastructure. This integration eliminates the need for multiple, disconnected solutions to address user management and operational risk within the data center. Security, performance, and availability services are all equally manageable, and ultimately more scalable, when deployed on the BIG-IP platform.
• Broad mobile OS support. F5's mobile solution provides full SSL VPN access for leading mobile OS and handset vendors, including Apple, Google, and Microsoft. Enterprises are able to extend secure remote access to the most popular platforms and enable bring your own device (BYOD) policies, reducing device costs while maintaining security standards.

According to IDC, the worldwide mobile worker population will increase from one billion in 2010 to 1.3 billion in 2015, accounting for 37.2 percent of the workforce¹. To support this prolific growth, organizations must secure and manage access to corporate resources from a wide array of mobile devices. Each device allowed onto a corporate network poses a security risk and management challenge that must be addressed.

"Many enterprise security architectures have dangerous shortcomings when it comes to handling employee-owned mobile devices," said Phil Hochmuth, Program Manager of security products research at IDC. "Integrating F5's security and remote access capabilities with leading MDM platforms makes sense for enterprises worried about getting blindsided with their employees connecting mobile devices to corporate IT assets."

Supporting Quotes

"MobileIron was purpose-built for global companies to secure and manage mobile devices and apps," said Ojas Rege, Vice President, Product, MobileIron. "By teaming with F5, a leader in application delivery and innovative SSL VPN and access solutions, we can offer our customers greater control and scale of their mobile infrastructures, improving application delivery, enforcing critical security policies, and ultimately increasing mobile productivity."

"The AirWatch MDM solution leverages F5 BIG-IP products for more than 1,000 SaaS-based customers, which made extending our partnership to support F5's mobility access a logical progression," said John Marshall, CEO, AirWatch. "Critical mobility requirements for our enterprise customers are met through the integration of AirWatch's highly scalable, multitenant solution with F5's ActiveSync proxy for global Exchange deployments and the Edge Client control of layer 3 endpoint routes for Android (News - Alert), iOS, and other mobility platforms. This provides an added layer of security, centralized management, and more efficient device, content, and application deployments."

"In this era of BYOD, IT departments want to allow employees to use their device of choice without compromising security or compliance requirements. Zenprise offers enterprises a secure MDM solution that provides protection at the device, application, network, and data levels," said Ahmed Datoo, CMO, Zenprise. "We're excited to team with F5 Networks and believe that together, we can provide customers with a more complete, enterprise-grade MDM solution that helps accelerate the mobile enterprise."

"We choose our technology partners carefully and take great pride in having launched our F5 integration module, Silverlync, in October 2011," said Chris Hagios, Co-founder and EVP of Products and Marketing, SilverbackMDM. "Silverlync allows for complete control of the device endpoint without requiring the user to download and configure an app store application, delivering a market leading single sign-on application authentication and resource allocation framework based on device ownership and security posture status."

Additional Resources

• F5 SSL VPN Security Solutions - Overview
• Access Control Solutions - Overview
• Secure iPhone Access to Corporate Web Applications
• F5 Keep Android Users Connected and Productive with New Secure Access Solutions - Press Release

About F5 Networks (News - Alert)

F5 Networks, Inc., the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN), helps the world's largest enterprises and service providers realize the full value of virtualization, cloud computing, and on-demand IT. F5^® solutions help integrate disparate technologies to provide greater control of the infrastructure, improve application delivery and data management, and give users seamless, secure, and accelerated access to applications from their corporate desktops and smart devices. An open architectural framework enables F5 customers to apply business policies at "strategic points of control" across the IT infrastructure and into the public cloud. F5 products give customers the agility they need to align IT with changing business conditions, deploy scalable solutions on demand, and manage mobile access to data and services. Enterprises, service and cloud providers, and leading online companies worldwide rely on F5 to optimize their IT investments and drive business forward. For more information, go to www.f5.com.

You can also follow @f5networks on Twitter (News - Alert) or visit us on Facebook for more information about F5, its partners, and technology. For a complete listing of F5 community sites, please visit www.f5.com/news-press-events/web-media/community.html.

F5, BIG-IP, Access Policy Manager, APM, Edge Gateway, iControl, 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.

¹ The IDC study, Worldwide Mobile Worker Population 2011-2015 Forecast, December 2011 (Doc #232073)

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