Foundry Networks, Inc., a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching and routing, today announced that Hostway Corporation, a specialist managed Web hosting services and domain name registration company, has selected its ServerIron(r) 4G application delivery switches to provide new Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) services to enterprise customers.

Founded in 1998, Hostway is privately owned and profitable with more than 600,000 enterprise and consumer customers worldwide. Its top enterprise clients include well-known names, such as Wikipedia, Fox Sports, Honda and KPMG. The company is one of the top five largest independent Web hosting companies in the world and the only truly global provider dedicated solely to Web hosting.

As part of Hostway's plans to offer its enterprise customers a wider range of services, the company selected Foundry ServerIron 4G application delivery switches, with integrated DNS proxy and GSLB capabilities. Working with Foundry(tm), these switches were installed in a number of locations globally including the United States, United Kingdom and South Korea.

David Foxley, UK sales manager, Hostway, explains, "We want to offer our enterprise clients a service, which would make a significant difference in how their own customers interact with them online. For our customers who use their Web sites as an essential tool for e-commerce, GSLB makes sure they don't suffer any downtime or loss of revenue by ensuring nonstop operation."

GSLB provides load balancing and high availability for Web sites or server farms hosted in multiple data centers. Web sites using GSLB are routed to the data center providing and, in the unlikely event of a failure, users are directed to the best alternative location thereby providing uninterrupted service. As international organizations expand into emerging markets, such as China and India, it will become increasingly important for them to make sure their Web sites are available and fully operational to customers from every corner of the globe at all times and GLSB ensures just this.

Foxley explains, "Customers trying to buy tickets to a rock concert running worldwide would access the organizer's Web site with local content provided to them based on their geographic location. Organizations can therefore adapt content to specific regions, changing language, advertising content, products and numbers so a customer, for example, based in the United Kingdom, would be directed to a site with local content relevant to them, whereas if they were in France or Germany, they'd be routed elsewhere."

Hostway selected Foundry's ServerIron 4G switches for this project as a cost effective way to provide customers with high-availability, redundant, resilient data center class switches, capable of handling large amounts of data.

By offering this new integrated GSLB feature, Hostway can protect its customers from power-outages or site redundancy as well as natural disasters or any other unplanned downtime ensuring visitors to an organization's Web site are always redirected to a functioning alternative. Additional features, such as e-mail SPAM mitigation, were important for Hostway as the company wanted to extend its enterprise services to organizations growing their online businesses.

Foxley continues, "The level of support we received when making previous purchases encouraged us to consider them again for our Web application switches. After rigorous testing, we determined that Foundry was the best option in terms of features, price, scalability, reliability and performance."

Gary Hemminger, director of product management, application delivery, Foundry, comments, "We're excited to be working with Hostway as they continue to extend services and offer their customers innovative managed hosting solutions. As the world of Web becomes ever increasingly 24x7x365, Hostway can provide support to ensure access to Web sites is possible at any time and from any location."