F5 HELPS MEDIASET ESPAÑA REDUCE STORAGE-RELATED CAPEX AND OPEX

F5 Press Release:

F5 PARTNER OMEGA PERIPHERALS LEADS PROJECT, HELPS MEDIASET ESPAÑA REDUCE WEEKLY FILE BACKUP TIMES FROM ONE DAY TO FOUR HOURS

MADRID, SPAIN, NOVEMBER 27, 2012

F5 Networks, Inc. NASDAQ: FFIV), the global leader in Application Delivery Networking, today announced that it has implemented F5’s ARX file virtualization technology to address and control data growth in Mediaset España’s storage environment, immediately reducing backup times and allowing measurable cost savings, with an estimated Return On Investment of 18 months.

Mediaset España is Spain’s leading private television group in terms of audience share and advertising revenues, known in particular for reality shows. The growth of the business had led to associated challenges in storing 35 TB of data in the company’s mixed NAS storage environment.  Mediaset España initiated a project to simplify its storage architecture, bringing storage growth under control before it became a serious problem.

After competitive evaluation of a number of tiered storage solutions also able to offer optimised replication and migration services, Mediaset España, via the leading systems integrator Omega Peripherals, selected the F5 ARX platform to manage data intelligently across its file storage infrastructure.  Importantly, the ARX platform is able to aggregate storage across a mixed storage vendor environment with no impact to the user, maintaining a single namespace over several drive mappings. 

Another benefit for Mediaset España was ARX’s automated storage tiering policies, allowing inactive data--comprising the majority of stored data--to be stored on less expensive storage whilst still remaining accessible.

Faustino Rodriguez, IT Manager at Mediaset España, said: “As well as dealing with issues around data growth in the short term, our aim was to build a storage architecture that was simpler and more flexible. F5 offered the best solution for the best cost and had experience of delivering solutions within the Mediaset group facing similar challenges to us.  “Our Tier 1 backup has dropped to four hours, whereas it used to take approximately a day, which is a significant saving in management and in time.”

“As the volume of stored data continues to dramatically increase, organisations continue to try and identify better ways to efficiently manage file data and keep storage-related costs under control,” said David Lumbreras, Channel Manager Spain and Portugal at F5, “The ARX platform is perfectly suited to solving these issues in complex storage environments.”

Jose Manuel Marentes, Systems Engineer at Mediaset España, said: "One of our major concerns was the user impact of this implementation, since the technology sits between the users and our NAS system.  The implementation was completely transparent, so this concern never manifested itself.”

ARX devices are high performance, enterprise-class intelligent file virtualization systems that dramatically simplify storage management and lower total storage management costs.  ARX systems automate data management tasks and eliminate the disruption associated with storage management operations, resulting in a dramatic improvement in cost, agility, and business efficiency.  Go towww.f5.com/solutions/storage for more information on how F5 helps simplify data management.

ABOUT F5 NETWORKS

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.

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F5 and ARX 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.

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