JULY 12, 2005--F5 Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader of Application Traffic Management products, today announced its first annual DevCentral iRule Contest. The contest entitled, “iRule, Do You?” is an opportunity for application developers and network professionals to showcase their iRule development expertise working with F5’s award-winning BIG-IP® product. Beginning on July 11 at 9am PST, the contest will be open for entries through August 31, 2005. Featuring lucrative prizes for customers and F5 partners, this contest will highlight the prolific iRule development activity within F5’s DevCentral community (
devcentral.f5.com).
“With the introduction of BIG-IP v9, F5 was the first networking vendor to introduce true application-fluency through our TM/OS architecture using iRules,” said Erik Giesa, VP of Product Management and Marketing at F5 Networks. “The benefit to our customers is the ability to centrally secure, optimize, and deliver applications with levels of control and efficiency that were previously impossible. Our customers are extremely creative, understand the value of having the network and applications work in concert, and have found iRules to be extremely intuitive when solving real-world application delivery problems. This contest will provide deserved recognition for iRules developers who have created some impressive solutions using iRules. In addition, organizations worldwide will be able to look to contest winners and their iRules as examples for how they can enhance the manageability, performance, and security of any of their IP applications.”
Judging for the iRule contest will begin September 1, 2005 by a panel of leading industry press and analysts, as well as the F5 DevCentral team of iRule experts. Industry expert judges include Lori MacVittie of Network Computing Magazine, Joel Conover of analyst firm Current Analysis, and Ronald Schmelzer and Jason Bloomberg, both of analyst firm ZapThink. iRule entries will be judged on a weighted scale that combines innovation, creativity, and business applicability.
“iRules present interesting opportunities for enterprises and integrators that want to further optimize how F5’s BIG-IP handles IP application traffic and increases datacenter automation,” said Joel Conover, Principal Analyst for Current Analysis. “I look forward to weighing in on the innovative iRule entries that help to expand and optimize the realm of real world possibilities for technologies like BIG-IP.”
Prizes will be awarded to the top three iRules entries from customers as well as three F5-affiliated resellers. All contestants will receive a limited edition iRule t-shirt for their submission. For complete contest details or to submit one more iRules, simply go to http://devcentral.f5.com. Participation requires free F5 DevCentral registration.
About iRules
iRules, an exclusive application-fluent F5 technology, are customizable commands that leverage the power of F5’s unique Traffic Management Operating System (TM/OS). It defines how F5 products secure, optimize, and deliver any bi-directional IP application traffic or flow, giving customers complete and granular control over their application traffic. Based on the popular Tool Command Language (TCL) and F5-specific extensions, iRules enable enterprises, service providers, and e-businesses to offload costly application functions that previously had to be performed by the applications themselves. With so many distributed applications, this centralized functional capability saves customers a tremendous amount of development work and can ensure successful application implementations without having to change the network or the application.
To assist customers and partners with learning more about iRules and iControl, F5 created DevCentral (devcentral.f5.com) over two years ago. DevCentral is the only web site and community on the Internet offering practical, real-world solutions and discussions to bridge the traditional gap that has existed between application developers and network professionals. The popularity of this unique resource is evident in its rapidly growing community of over 4,000 application developers and network professionals worldwide. While free of charge, DevCentral is a rich resource offering tools, techniques, and collaboration to help the F5 user community build solutions with iControl and iRules.
About F5 Networks
F5 enables organizations to successfully deliver business-critical applications and gives them the greatest level of agility to stay ahead of growing business demands. As the pioneer and global leader in Application Traffic Management, F5 continues to lead the industry by driving more intelligence into the network to deliver advanced application agility. F5 products ensure the secure and optimized delivery of applications to any user – anywhere. Through its flexible and cohesive architecture, F5 delivers unmatched value by dramatically improving the way organizations serve their employees, customers and constituents, while lowering operational costs. Over 9,000 organizations and service providers worldwide trust F5 to keep their businesses running. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices worldwide. For more information go to www.f5.com.
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