QUESTnet 2000

1. QUESTnet 2000 4 Components of a Business Critical Internet Site Carl Jackson Australia/NZ Manager F5 Networks, Inc c.jackson@f5.com June 28, 2000

2. · · E-Commerce Financial Intranet/Enterprise • – Abercrombie + Fitch – ABN Amro – 3Com – Alaska Airlines – Bank of America – Advanced Micro Devices – American Airlines – Capital One – Alcoa – Annixter – CBS MarketWatch – Apple – Avnet – Countrywide – Bell Atlantic – Best Buy – Citicorp – Bell South – CDNow – Fidelity – Blue Cross Blue Shield – Circuit City – First Data – British Telecom – Columbia House – Franklin Templeton – Cabletron – CompUSA – Freddie Mac – Cargill – eBay – FreeEDGAR – Compaq – Egghead – Knight Securities – Eastman Kodak – eToys – Morningstar – Federal Express – Home Grocer – Olde Discount – GTE – iCat/Intel – Paymentech – Hewlett Packard – Ingram Micro – – Korea Telecom – Nordstrom – Merck – Nortel Networks – Microsoft – Red Hat – Monsanto – REI – Motorola – Tower Records – NEC – Ubid – Newbridge Networks – Williams Sonoma – NTT – Oracle – Samsung · Internet Service – Siemens – Ancestry – Singapore Technologies – Encyclopaedia Britannica – Sony – Giga Research – Sprint – Intuit – Warner Brothers – iVillage – Jupiter Communications · Portal – MapQuest – AOL/Netscape – The Motley Fool – Ask Jeeves – MovieFone – Alta Vista – Network Solutions – Excite@Home – Playboy – GO2NET – RealNetworks – Infospace – USA Today – Lycos – Washington Post – Ziff Davis Over 1500 Customers · Government – CIA – Department of Transportation – Defense Tech. Info. Center – Federal Reserve Bank – Government Printing Office – Intelink – International Trade Commission – Lawrence Livermore Nat’l Lab – NASA – National Library of Medicine – National Technical Information Service – Office of Secretary of Defense – Tennessee Valley Authority – U.S. Army – U.S. Navy People’s Bank – PricewaterhouseCoopers · Healthcare – Republic Bank – Healtheon – Sallie Mae – Onhealth – Salomon Smith Barney – Health Central – T. Rowe Price – Drugstore – Wit Capital – Mayo Clinic – US bank · ISP/Web Hosting – Angelfire – Cable & Wireless – Covad – Demon Internet – DIGEX – Exodus Communications – Global Crossing – Internet Canada/ACC – MRNet /MEANS – Planet Online – PSINet – Qwest – StarMedia – USWeb /CKS – UUNet – Discover Music – Verio – Worldcom

3. What You Want… • Pick up the phone and you get dialtone. Flip a switch and lights turn on. Go to a web site and … oops … not as predictable. • Businesses need control over their Internet sites. Revenue, profitability and reputation depend on control of Internet site availability and performance.

4. Dollars are more liquid than ever • The Internet makes purchases or movement of capital in general more liquid than ever before in history • Mouse click is more convenient than a drive across town or a flight around the world • Building brand is critical for long term success • Long term “sticky-ness” • Serving an existing customer is less expensive than acquiring new ones

5. How to retain more liquid • Must build infrastructure to support capturing & retaining customers • Many approaches • Focus on the infrastructure required to deliver “Internet Quality Control”

6. What turns a site “off” or makes it leak • Too much traffic • Hardware failure • Operating system failure • Application failure • Content failure - sending out “error” messages • Network outage

7. Internet Quality Control Server Network Content Management Leaving one component out = risk - lost business, law suits, market cap QUESTnet Toowoomba, June 28, 2000

8. SEATTLE Local Area Traffic - Server database Internet Servers User Local Area Traffic Manager Router

9. Local Area Traffic - Server • Basic mismatch between growth of server capacity & network capacity • Moore’s Law vs. Gilder’s Law

10. Driving Factors for High Availability Solutions • Processor capacity doubles every 18 months - Moore’s Law • Network traffic doubles every 100 days - Gilder’s Law • Servers do not accommodate bursty traffic • A new server with 4x performance 8-10 times as expensive • Skilled technical personnel are scarce and expensive

11. Server Old way • Buy a bigger server New way • Use Intelligent Load Balancing technology & buy multiple smaller servers

12. Intelligent Load Balancing Traffic • Virtualizes multiple devices • Virtual Resource Management • Internet Traffic Management • Intelligently distributes traffic • Insulates users from problems ServersCachesFirewalls

13. Issues to Consider • How availability is determined • Are applications sending the “right” answer • Methods to maintain persistence • Must dovetail with application state awareness • Address concentration & jumpy source address • Proxies, • Load balancing methods • Security • Other value added services • Rate shaping • Packet filtering

14. Business Reasons to Implement • Assures the store is always open for business • Customer Retention • Site can offer the appropriate level of access/service based on the customer relationship • Provides predictable transaction completion • Maximize return on investment from existing assets • Allows a site to easily scale to meet growing demand • Enhances customer experience • Fast access • Consistent response time/content/service • Delivery of the right content

15. SEATTLE NEW YORK Wide Area Traffic - Network database Internet Servers Internet Servers User Wide Area Traffic Manager Wide Area Traffic Manager Router Router

16. Network • Once Server solution is in place, next challenge is the network

17. Network - Driving Factors • Address disaster recovery • Give the best experience to the end user • Minimize network response time • Localize traffic • Reduce Costs • Provide predictable response to end users • BRAND - present single presence to the world

18. Network • 25% of customers currently depend on globally distributed data centers. • 2/3 of single site customers intend to move to globally distributed data centers within a year.

19. Network Old Way • Manual selection by end user • Round robin DNS • Router metrics New Way • Intelligent Wide Area load balancing • Stretch the LAN solution over the WAN

20. Intelligent WAN Load Balancing • Virtualizes multiple data centers • Intelligently distributes traffic • Insulates users from problems

21. Issues to Consider • Direct traffic to the best performing site based on both site & network metrics • Deciding based on one without the other results in poor customer experience • Network great but servers down = lost customer • There is no single metric that can be used to distribute traffic effectively. A combination approach works best • Site - throughput, servers available, connections • Network - round trip time, packet loss • Preferred site based on Topology or Disaster Recovery

22. Network - Business Reasons to Implement • Business continuity - guarantees site is always “ON” • Provides users with best experience • Enhances brand in market • Reduces costs • Local disk cheaper than transport - similar to decision to cache • Regain control

23. BRISBANE TOOWOOMBA Content database Internet Servers Internet Servers Content Manager Content Manager User Router Router ROCKHAMPTON Content Manager Router Internet Servers File Server

24. Content In solving the Server & Network problems a third challenge is created • Users can be directed to any data center • Users can be directed to any server • How to manage all the files required to deliver the “right” response to users

25. Content Old way • Solutions to date have been “roll your own” • Winner for best name so far… “Grunt” • Labor intensive New way • Automated Content Management

26. Content • Must be compatible with existing content creation tools • Facilitate distribution & management of files • Must provide roll-out & roll-back mechanism to far-flung resources • Interact with Local & Wide Area components • Ease burden on technical staff resources

27. LONDON NEW YORK SEATTLE Management database Internet Servers Internet Servers User Router Router TOKYO Router Router Network Management Console Internet Servers Internet Servers File Server

28. Covering the Bases

29. Summary - Internet Quality Control • You must first guarantee availability of server, network & content • Once the base guarantee of “on” is in place then start treating people & traffic differently • Establish business policies & have the components of your Internet Quality Control system work in concert to enforce them