A10 Networks News

Hawkins Selects A10 Networks AX Series Advanced Traffic Managers

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 28 PRNewswire — A10 Networks(R), the technology leader in providing Web Application Delivery solutions, today announced that Hawkins, a chemical manufacturing and distribution company, selected a pair of AX Series Advanced Traffic Managers to load balance its server farm running critical enterprise applications. Hawkins has nearly 300 employees across a headquarters in Minneapolis, MN, and 18 other facilities. To operate its business, Hawkins leverages JD Edwards Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) application software, running on four Java Application Servers, and Windows 2003 Terminal Services running on six Windows Terminal Servers. To meet its consistent growth and critical application performance requirements, Hawkins replaced its existing load balancing system with a pair of A10 AX 2000s for redundancy.

"We chose A10's AX 2000s as our server load balancer platform because of their impressive interface and competitive price, plus the first class customer service and response from the A10 team," said Paul Veeneman, chief technology engineer for Hawkins. "A10's AX Series balance the user connections over our JD Edwards ERP software and Windows 2003 Terminal Servers. We believe we are achieving a more even distribution of load after implementing A10."

The compelling reasons for choosing A10's AX include:

— Cost: The cost of two AX 2000s for a High Availability (HA) pair was approximately the same price as a single other server load balancer. Also, the AX Series includes a modern multi-core CPU architecture.

— Support: A10 provided superior services and support to ensure a better support experience.

— Interface: The AX Series Web graphical user interface (GUI) appeared clear and elegant with intuitive commands that are more descriptive than others on the market. Additionally, the AX Series has an industry standard command line interface (CLI), creating familiarity quickly, allowing Hawkins' field technical staff to leverage the product without additional training.

"We are proud to provide Hawkins with our AX Series for its critical JD Edwards ERP applications," said Lee Chen, founder and CEO of A10 Networks. "The AX Series is a next-generation server load balancer with "Performance by Design" that delivers significant price/performance advantages for the Web Application Delivery market — with first class service and support."

Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS): Optimized Multi-CPU Platform

The Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) - built by A10's team of industry-leading engineers with high performance Layer 2-3, Layer 4-7 and super computing expertise - is the distinguishing technology that makes the AX Series stand out in the Web Application Delivery market. Many of the competing vendors' solutions are based on legacy architecture not designed to address the greater scale of Internet traffic and security requirements - for today and tomorrow. In order to address the need for speed, vendors continue to move their single-CPU software solutions to more powerful multi-CPU traffic management systems. But without the complete redesign of the software, performance benefits as a result of more powerful hardware will never be realized.

A10's AX Series with ACOS includes an optimized, multi-CPU architecture, built from the ground up. ACOS provides the ability to linearly and concurrently scale processing resources. By evenly distributing application traffic to the system's processors, ACOS eliminates performance bottlenecks caused by unevenly loaded processors — allowing applications to perform as desired, especially during peak usage conditions.

To read the full case study, please visit: http://www.a10networks.com/resources/files/CS-Hawkins.pdf

About A10 Networks

A10 Networks was founded in Q4 2004 with a mission to provide innovative networking and security solutions. A10 Networks makes high-performance products that help organizations accelerate, optimize and secure their applications. A10 Networks is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in the United States, Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan. For more information, visit http://www.a10networks.com.

About Hawkins

Hawkins, Inc. provides a full range of bulk industrial products complemented with the technical competence and innovation to formulate and blend specialty chemicals. The company sells and services related products and equipment to safely dispense chemicals in highly controlled environments.

Hawkins serves customers in a wide range of industries, including chemical processing, electronics, energy, environmental services, food processing, metal finishing, pharmaceutical, medical devices, pulp and paper, and water treatment.

Hawkins is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The company operates 18 facilities in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, South and North Dakota and Wisconsin and services customers in Upper Michigan and Wyoming as well. For more information, visit: http://www.hawkinsinc.com/