F5 BIG-IP Short Range - SFP (mini-GBIC) transceiver module - 1GbE
$486.99
Mfg # F5-UPG-SFP-R
CDW # 1286307
| UNSPSC 26121600
Quick tech specs
- IP Short Range
- 1GbE
- field
- SFP (mini-GBIC) transceiver module
- 1000Base-SX
- for BIG-IP 6900 Application Switch
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F5 BIG-IP Short Range - SFP (mini-GBIC) transceiver module - GigE is rated4.36 out of5 by39.
Rated 5 out of 5 byInderjeet Singh from Enables us to catch attacks before they hit usWhat is our primary use case?The primary use case is the common use case for everyone. It has performed well.How has it helped my organization?The benefit is security. It's able to track issues, the attacks. So that enables us to catch the attacks before they hit us. We are able to nail them down.What is most valuable?DDOS protection.What needs improvement?They can improve on the DDOS solution and have more stable solutions.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It's stable.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?I haven't done any upgrades yet, but it is scalable to some extent.How is customer service and technical support?Technical support is good. I would rate it seven out of 10.What other advice do I have?The most important criteria when selecting a vendor are the market value, the cost, and the stability of the product.I would rate this solution a seven out of 10 because it fulfills my requirements.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-04T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byNetworkE0d45 from Versatile, easy to use; the iRule feature is key for meHow has it helped my organization?Previously we had an IdP on a Linux server. However, this was a pain to configure. With the F5 this has become easy. Therefore, more and more of our applications are now transferred to SAML.What is most valuable?I really like the ease of use of it in general. If I were to choose one in particular, perhaps it would be the iRule feature. It’s a really versatile tool.What needs improvement?The SharePoint SSO part has some room for improvement. Opening documents and spreadsheets on local applications in on our specific situation is not possible.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?None at all.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?No issues with scalability.How is customer service and technical support?F5 is a big company. They have a great community and TAC. The advantage with this product is that it isn't new. They have many engineers who have been working with it for a long time and have a lot of experience.Which solutions did we use previously?We used to have a Barracuda WAF. It was unreliable and it didn’t have all the features of the F5. It was out of maintenance and we decided never to use Barracuda again.How was the initial setup?Easy switch from our Barracuda to F5. The setup was done with an engineer. However, if you pay good attention you can manage it afterwards. I also have a F5 test environment on a VM. These cost around $100 but are worth that money for testing purposes.Which other solutions did I evaluate?We tried FortiADC briefly. However the big contender was Citrix NetScaler.What other advice do I have?Be sure of what you will use. F5 isn’t cheap but is worth the price. Also, take a good look at all the different options and make sure you take the correct hardware platform. You can always add more licenses, but if the physical device isn’t up to the task you’re stuck.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byTechnicab017 from Improves our program performance and securityWhat is our primary use case?We use it for local traffic management and for the application firewall. We are trying to deploy virtual appliances in AWS.How has it helped my organization?It has improved our program performance and security.What is most valuable?* The web application firewall.* The configuration and integration into the AWS environment was pretty easy.What needs improvement?We would like to see load balancing between the cloud and the on-premise, a straightforward deployment feature.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?The stability is almost there. Sometimes it hangs or there are unpredictable performance issues.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?It's easier to scale.How is customer service and technical support?Technical support could be better.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?The price is high.Which other solutions did I evaluate?We looked at A10. When deciding whether to go with F5 or A10 it depends on the business requirements. Sometimes I propose one and sometimes I propose the other. It depends on the customer's requirements and budget. For our internal use we went with F5 because it's the best tool.What other advice do I have?The on-prem version and the AWS versions are almost the same.In terms of the experience purchasing through AWS marketplace, because we are a partner, the way we purchase it from AWS is different. We don't buy directly from the market.Overall, it's a good product.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.Reseller.
Date published: 2019-01-06T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byGirisha R from A stable solution for application delivery controlWhat is our primary use case?Our primary use case is for ADC (Application Delivery Controller) and SSL VPN prospectively worked for the PoC.How has it helped my organization?This solution is very good and the product stability is excellent.It has very good production for SMB protocol.What is most valuable?I found the most valuable feature to be the SSL VPN.What needs improvement?The license terms for "non-commercial" are challenging for us.For how long have I used the solution?Trial/evaluations only.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-04-16T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byRehan Ghayyur Khan from Hardware and software partitioning enable us to deploy multiple instances, two vCMPsWhat is our primary use case?We’re a systems integration company. We propose this solution mostly to our banking customers and large enterprise clients, so that they can load-balance their core banking applications and their main applications.It also provides proxying, the client cannot directly access the server. BIG-IP is a proxy between the user and the server, so the client cannot make connections directly to servers. They land on F5 BIG-IP and then F5 creates connections on servers on behalf of clients.We use the solution for smarter, safer, and reliable connectivity.How has it helped my organization?It has multi-tenancy features, like hardware clustering. It has software partitioning so that you can partition F5. For example, in my recent deployments, I deployed F5 in a bank where they had two load balancers. One was Cisco Ace and the other was Citrix Netscaler.We created two instances, two vCMP Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing, two hardware partitions in F5, one for Ace and one for Citrix. We migrated all applications which were on Ace to the Ace partition, and we migrated all applications which were on Citrix to the Citrix partition. Further, we created the outgoing internet and software partitions, and it has application visibility, reporting functions.What is most valuable?It has so many features. First of all, it has a full proxy architecture, it has multiple modules. The best feature is the WAF, the web application firewall module. It also has cashing type capabilities. It has all kinds of load-balancing algorithms based on your IT requirements.So the WAF and load balancing. Both are core features of BIG-IP.In every environment, you have a Web application firewall, you have internet firewalls. Then, traffic comes into your datacenter so that you have datacenter firewalls. F5 has everything.It provides first-tier firewalling, for you application. And it provides server load-balancing, it provides optimization, and it provides a proxy feature, where your users cannot directly access your server. It acts as a fully proxy architecture. It has client-side and server-side connections, both, and they're separate.It also has an AVR feature: application, visibility, and recording. It's good for customers looking for what is actually happening in their network and where the latency is. If I'm using iDirect, the bank branch is connecting to my core banking application, but if the clients are finding that the application is slow, it has TCP LAN and WAN optimization features. It has has caching.What needs improvement?The room for improvement is that the product is a little costly. I live in the Third World, Pakistan. We have budget constraints, even in big enterprise servers. My team said that this product is too costly, and why don't we go with another product, we should do a comparative analysis with Citrix and F5.I told them that is costly, but it has rich features, the support is good, the features are reliable, and the technical assistance center, the tech support, is almost perfect.Still, I would say they need to cut their prices for countries or regions that we live in.The one gap I saw was that pure LBN integration is a little tricky. The insertion of F5 in LBN is a little tricky. They need to work on something, on products by which they can insert F5 in any sort of cloud environment. These are not really big things.They are continuously improving. They are improving day by day, and they are the number-one load balancer.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It is a stable product. It runs on TMOS, traffic management operating system. This is very stable.If they see that an upgrade required, they provide you the release and they provide you the release notes, so you can upgrade your TMOS version and at any time. You can also open a case and they can guide you on how to upgrade your TMOS version.They also keep an eye on vulnerability. If there is a bug or any sort of vulnerability in their operating system, they will immediately release an update. So the product is so much more stable compared to any load balancers on the planet at the moment.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?It has that scalability for adding more F5, N + 1.It's scalable, and it has more functions than a service. At the same time, this device can run access policy manager, it has Web application firewall, datacenter switching to DR sites. It has a modular approach actually. It gives you what you want.How is customer service and technical support?They are very professional. They are highly skilled people.How was the initial setup?It is neither simple nor complex. It all depends on what kind of situations you are in. My last deployment was a little bit complex but previous deployments were very simple.We did hardware partitioning and software partitioning for a multi-tenancy concept, where every application owner has its own load balancing instance within F5. So it all depends on how you deploy a device and it depends on your planning.If you want a simple deployment you can do so. You can create multiple virtual servers on F5 BIG-IP technology, and within multiple virtual servers you can have multiple nodes, where a node equals two application servers.It can be deployed in a complex manner and it can be deployed in a very simple manner, it all depends on your choice.It has a rapid deployment feature to deploy Microsoft Exchange load balancing. It has automation. You can simply click on Microsoft Exchange 2016 Email Server. Tclick on it and tell F5 about server IPs, and it goes automatically.What was our ROI?24 x 7 always on applications without any down time.Which other solutions did I evaluate?Brocade ADX.What other advice do I have?F5 is the number-one application delivery controller, plus they are the number-one Web application firewall, together in the market right now. So what else do you want from them? Whenever we go and pitch this solution to our customers, we tell them that we are not selling you just a load balancer. We are selling you application delivery controllers, and Web application firewalls.I give it 9.5 out of 10. It's a really costly product and smaller organizations cannot afford this solution, so it's hard to sell a plan. But once the customer has it, this product is a 10.Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner.
Date published: 2018-03-06T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byKushtrimDautaga from We Can Load Balance Servers RequestsWhat is most valuable?LTM.How has it helped my organization?We can load balance the request to servers, which was the main reason we bought the product.What needs improvement?I think the logging could be improved.For how long have I used the solution?Two years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?No.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?No.How is customer service and technical support?I have never used F5 technical support.Which solutions did we use previously?No.How was the initial setup?No, it was simple.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?Check other vendors like Cisco, Citrix or A10 Networks. There are plenty in the market with which you can achieve same thing.Which other solutions did I evaluate?No, straight to F5.What other advice do I have?Stable product. It also offers a virtual edition which comes in handy if you have a VMware environment.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-08-13T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byDevelope0fe0 from It has helped our company with active pools and standby pools for high availabilityWhat is our primary use case?* Load balancing* Certificate management* Pooling of servicesHow has it helped my organization?* Load balancing deployments* Active pools and standby pools for high availability.What is most valuable?* Load balancing* Being able to adjust headers.* Request response headers.* Patching issues in the load balancer that we don't want in the application layer.What needs improvement?Certificate management needs improvement. I would like automated deployment of new certificates without manual intervention to be in the next release of this product.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?The product is very stable. We put a decent amount of stress on it given our load.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?It seems to be a very scalable product.As for the size of our environment, we have our own data center, but it's a small data center.What other advice do I have?I would give it a nine out of ten for its stability and feature set, as well as the way it handles our load.Definitely consider this product on your product evaluation list.It is the front-end to the cloud for all the services in our data center. So, it sort of integrates with all of our services.We have yet to integrate it with AWS.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-12-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byJoshua Cruz from You can manipulate the iRules, so you can send traffic to different avenuesWhat is our primary use case?We use it as a load balancer.How has it helped my organization?We have always used it and never had any issues with it.What is most valuable?The most valuable feature is being able to manipulate the iRules, so you can send traffic to different avenues.What needs improvement?The auto logout feature after three minutes is terrible. I wish they would make that longer, since it is not a feature that we can change.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It contributes to our traffic by about fifty percent. That's why we love it. We have never had any issues.We put a lot of stress on our F5 on-premise. We have support, which is great. It is a ten out of ten.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?We have over 12 applications that we use it for with about 300 servers which are connected up using this load balancer.We're a big company. We do like the on-premise version. However, we are looking into AWS servers to help us scale for larger avenues as well.How is customer service and technical support?We reached out to the technical support a few times, and they are great. They are a ten out of ten.How was the initial setup?The integration and configuration are great. When I need to make changes, I have been fine.We are currently using the Terraform Infrastructure as Code. Therefore, we are using the F5 provider to create new nodes, pools, and purchase servers, and the integration has been seamless for us.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?We are going to the AWS Marketplace because purchasing there is simple to do. We are looking for the ease it provides. We have tried other providers, but it wasn't as good.Which other solutions did I evaluate?We did not evaluate anything else.What other advice do I have?Take advantage of it and use it.We use the on-premise version of this product. We are looking into moving over to the AWS version.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-12-24T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byit_user521838 from It integrates with Oracle PeopleSoft. They could improve the synchronization between their main site and the failover site.What is our primary use case?My team uses F5 for two main purposes. The first purpose is load balancing. F5 is very good at load balancing. It allows you to set up monitors so it can easily detect if the systems' load balancing is actually up. In addition, we use F5 for intrusion detection on some externally facing pieces of the applications that I support.What is most valuable?We like the capability to combine the content switching with the intrusion prevention and adding the security roles, so we can expose certain sub-pieces outside without exposing everything.Another feature that we like is how they integrate nicely with the Oracle PeopleSoft application, and since that's one of my main focuses, I really like that they have the built-in integration.What needs improvement?I have been really happy with what they have been doing.They could improve the synchronization between their main site and the failover site. Sometimes, we run into issues where it does not sync well, so I would like to see that improved.The synchronization does works fairly well. However, if I were to make changes, I would make it easier to start the sync process. For example, once you get the changes pending you have to click inside to tell it to sync. It would be nice if it would offer a button to click on for the sync if it is only going one direction. Another feature which would be nice in a sync is to have the ability to compare if there are changes on both sides, and if there are conflicts, it would allow you to choose which to apply. Otherwise, it would sync both directions at the same time.What do I think about the stability of the solution?We haven't had any major downtime. The solution comes with a high availability situation, and I've never seen a situation where it was down, because even when you do the patch, you patch one side and then the other, and so always one side at least is up. I haven't noticed it to be down.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?It is a scalable solution. I think it will meet our future requirements. We started using it when Cisco announced that they were no longer doing their content switch and we've been implementing it a lot. It's one of the current focuses that our company is doing in the infrastructure side of things.How is customer service and technical support?Customer Service:I usually go via the online support, which is very good.Technical Support:They have been very quick to respond to all of the needs that we've had. If you want ad-hoc support. They also provide professional services that you can purchase as well.How was the initial setup?I got involved after the initial setup was done, so I can't say if that was complex or not. The pieces that we're doing where we're setting up content switches and stuff like that, that seems to be really straightforward. I didn't even have to take training to work on it!Which other solutions did I evaluate?I have not actually used any of the competitor products.What other advice do I have?I would recommend that they really look at it. It's a good product. It really helps. Initially, I would also recommend that they consider using some consulting help from their firm to get it set up, because like I said, I wasn't involved there, but I know we did use that.When I look to work with a vendor like this, I look for vendors that are responsive, certainly ones that have a good reputation, and ones that when you get their products, they actually do what they tell you they're going to do.I rated F5 Big-IP three and a half stars, because I seldom rate anything five stars. The F5 interface is easy to use, but not everything is intuitive. Some training is necessary to understand how everything works together.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-02-27T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byPablo Vega from We use it for the load balancing of our equipment, but the interface could use improvementWhat is our primary use case?We use F5 for the load balancing of our equipment. We use it for DDoS functionalities in our security solution.How has it helped my organization?This solution is the best security platform. We have even attached it to another security platform solution for DDoS.What needs improvement?They need to improve the interface and some of the functionalities.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It is very stable. We have not had many problems.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?We don't need additional features to grow out the platform.How is customer service and technical support?The occasion in which we needed technical support, we didn't have problems with them, because they always answered our questions without any trouble.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-08-05T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byThomas Hejula from It could be hard to scale because we will be encrypting and decrypting. The connection through the API Gateway worked in no time, which was fantastic.What is our primary use case?We use it primarily for WAF.How has it helped my organization?The ability to quickly set up. I understood it very quickly. I had some URLs which pointed to my load balancers, and inside there, I had to send an action to the API Gateway. I thought it was going to be a very complex thing for me to do, but that one rule that I had to create, it solved everything for me.The connection through the API Gateway worked in no time, which was fantastic. From the perspective of us building it, once you have that one rule you can stamp it out. Also, it was easy for me to show operations, "Look how easy it is. There's nothing complex about it."What is most valuable?* iRules* SimplicityI was able to simply and quickly set up the WAF rules and security, and also set up easily complex policies and rules which gave me some great features to redirect. So, I had to integrate API Gateway into our WAF, because we're a healthcare company, and we have to maintain security. Therefore, they didn't want to have public endpoints that had not been inspected. The policy features inside the WAF rules were really easy for me to set up. What I thought was going to take me two months, I had done in about two weeks. Between Googling and F5 having great information, so instead of using traditional iRules, I used a policy thing that they recommended. It was much simpler and cleaner, and seemed to execute faster. It was a great feature.The configuration and implementation of what I thought I was going to have to do was a lot simpler than I expected it to be. That was a plus.What needs improvement?People love them in security, but their costs are completely out of bounds. However, I'm not a security guy, so I don't necessarily know all the ins and outs of why our security team may have chosen this product versus other ones.I am disappointed with the additional cost. 25 megabytes is low. If we get to a thousand, a gig, It is like three dollars an hour. While you can get a reduction in price, when I price them against anyone else, they are wildly overpriced.I used GitHub for autoscaling CloudFormation, and I found two bugs and I submitted them. Their implementation in GitHub could be cleaner and allow for a bit more customization. We always end up customizing these things, so I found two bugs and I thought they were big bugs so I was surprised. This wasn't necessarily relative to product. It was more about the support role of GitHub and the way it was launching. However, the features that they said would work, did not.For how long have I used the solution?Less than one year.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It seems very stable. I've had no problems with stability at all. It's been rock solid, from the perspective of staying in line and working as expected.I did individual testing. We were doing very small tests to start, 25 megabits. So, I was driving close to 25 megabits through it. Memory and CPU, I thought might be a bit of a concern, but overall it seemed good. It was doing what I needed it to do, and doing it well, so I didn't notice anything in my traffic.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?I haven't thought of production workloads on it yet. I don't know how the performance is going to be in terms of CPU memory, but I was told by other people because of what we're doing on it, it could be hard to scale. So, we may have to end up buying more because we will be encrypting and decrypting. We have to inspect that traffic, so that will be CPU intensive. Therefore, one instance may not be enough for us, as we may be spinning up multiples across Multi-AZs.We will be just stacking our costs. Granted, it is virtualization, and you can only get so much out of it. However, I haven't put true production workloads through it. I have only done my testing, and I am concerned a bit about these factors and how they may drive our costs even more, because I will have to spin up more WAFs to accommodate for high CPU and memory loads.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?From a cost perspective, I agreed to analyze the standards in terms of load balancing. However, the cost that they have with AWS are almost prohibitive. I'm being forced to use F5 WAF. I would not simply use it based on cost. I agree that they have some great features, but for me, cost is key in terms of AWS.This applies to buying in the AWS Marketplace. If you go to a simple WAF doing 25 megabits, and I'm paying for the instance cost as well, it is over a dollar an hour. You can add that up and ask for some discounts, but relative to other players, they are significantly more expensive.We will need a lot of these, and it can be a real negative driver in terms of spend and how we will be able to move forward.Purchasing though the AWS Marketplace was easy; it was a piece of cake. You go right in, and the options are there. It was nice you can pick the different kind of group you wanted and what type of security you wanted. It did put in a lot of information that would build a lot of the initial infrastructure for me in terms of supporting my load balancer and creating security. Granted, I destroyed it all, but it was nice and it was there. It gave me the ability to level set what I should create versus what they put in place. I could see what they're doing here and I can match it to my own criteria. What they put in the AWS Marketplace and came through with the license, it worked well.We chose to go through the AWS Marketplace because you can do almost anything you are going to launch there. The first time you launch, you always grab from the market, particularly for PoCs, as it's just easier. There's no reason why I wouldn't go through the AWS Marketplace, because they've already have F5 WAF. It's exactly what I want and it's exactly what I needed, so I can go from there.Which other solutions did I evaluate?I am a fan of using AWS natively. It is much cheaper.We also looked at Check Point and Barracuda, but they were not markedly cheaper. The whole reason to use AWS was its ability to create resources which have more economic scale. This has almost started to get lost with the prices that these companies are charging.I started my PoC back in April, which is when I finished three PoCs across different deployments for F5. So, I'd probably been using the product for about eight months.What other advice do I have?The product works.We have F5 all across our environment. We use them for both VPNs and for traditional load balancers. So, we have VIPRIONs and several different versions of on-premise F5 hardware, as well. From an operations team perspective, everything is easy to learn; seamless. The ability to get teams to focus on AWS F5 is easy because they already know everything there. From an operational perspective, it is a win-win because they already know how to work with the F5.Within our AWS environment, it is integrated with network load balancers. Then, depending on the traffic flow, it can either be back-end through the Palo Alto IDS IPS or it can be front-end for the IDS IPS. So, it has integration in between there, which was very nice. I was able to set up very intricate NAT rules, because I had to handle the traffic away. It did work very well. There were some issues with the routing, but that was more how AWS routes rather than F5 which I had to work around. Other than that, getting traffic back and forth between the two and the network load balancing was a piece of cake.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-12-09T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byipmplspr538920 from Along with load balancing, we perform a lot of packet inspections, URL rewriting, and SSL interceptions via iRuleWhat is our primary use case?We are using it primarily for load balancing. We also make great use of SSL interception (offloading and onloading), packet inspection, rewriting, and DNS wide IP.How has it helped my organization?It is a very good, flexible solution. It helps us to catch up on flaws in our partner solutions on top of its load balancing feature.What is most valuable?Along with load balancing, we perform a lot of packet inspections, URL rewriting, and SSL interceptions via iRule.What needs improvement?I would recommend that the cost be lowered.User tracking: Needs to provide a visual interface to follow a customer's activity (from client to BIG-IP to SNAT IP to the chosen server, then back). Today, we are still performing packet captures.For how long have I used the solution?Three to five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?Not so far.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?Not so far.How is customer service and technical support?So far, we have not had to contact them.Which solutions did we use previously?We previously used Cisco ACE, which has very limited features.How was the initial setup?The initial setup is straightforward. The GUI interface is user-friendly.Software upgrades have been performed by F5 teams.What about the implementation team?The initial migration was done by our technical team.The last implementation was done by the F5 team. I would rate them as a nine out of 10. I am not giving a 10 because we encountered some difficulties with the software upgrade from version 11 to version 12.What was our ROI?ROI is four years.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?If you are planning to use security features, better to go for strong hardware and the best bundle license, which is great for web security.Which other solutions did I evaluate?No.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-04-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byit_user526731 from Superior Alternative To DNS Round-Robin Load BalancingWhat is most valuable?* Great load balancing* Solid OS* Great supportHow has it helped my organization?Far superior to DNS Round-Robin load balancing; great HTTP and HTTPs redirection.What needs improvement?Fixing bugs.For how long have I used the solution?About 11 years, I believe.What do I think about the stability of the solution?Older OS releases may have had some bugs (active/active on reboot, I think we saw on one OS version). Very stable OS over all. We had one issue on our upgrade to 11.x where I had to engage F5 support. But they resolved it.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?No.How is customer service and technical support?Excellent.Which solutions did we use previously?No.How was the initial setup?Pretty straightforward. The first generation of Big-IP we had, we did a crossover heartbeat cable, but our current one just uses a switched network.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?Great product for the money. But they can get really expensive, so get what meets your needs. They do have some expensive extras like GTM, which has both hardware and licensing costs for multiple datacenters.Which other solutions did I evaluate?Citrix, NetScaler.What other advice do I have?Check with your IT staff and developers and agree on your needs, and buy accordingly. VM instances are now also available. They don’t have an end-to-end analytics package yet (supposedly in development), to troubleshoot users' experience to the back end nodes. (Citrix offers a product called MAS).Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-08-20T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byit_user521841 from It's stable. They could make the licensing more aligned with the business model.What needs improvement?I think the product is a good product. I think where they can improve is in the licensing. It's quite expensive. They could make it more aligned with the business model than with the hardware.For how long have I used the solution?I have been using F5 for about two years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It is a stable product but sometimes we have some issues. I have other products that are competitors of F5, and they are also good. The performance of F5 so far is good.Usually, because we are responsible for providing high availability, we run our architecture with redundancy. Usually, for example, when I have F5, I have a couple of F5s, the active one and the standby one. Today, I had problems. I don't know what happened; it couldn't reload automatically. The other one assumed that I have problems with my infrastructure. That's unfortunately the life of an operations guy.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?It is scalable and should meet our future requirements.How is customer service and technical support?Technical support is OK. Usually, you don't have direct support from the vendor. You have intermediating in the middle.How was the initial setup?The setup is not straightforward. To set up this product, you must know how to do it. Otherwise, you can't do it. It's not plug and play.What other advice do I have?They could buy it but there are other choices such as Cisco ACE products, as well. We have it. They are also good. F5 are good. Usually, I'm not locked into one vendor.The reality is our bookkeeping department unfortunately has a problem with them. Because of that, I have had some issues concerning getting services from the vendor.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2017-02-27T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byJackChen3 from Global DNS, Link Controller, and Server Load Balancer provide our company service with high availability. Internet and cloud support could be improvedWhat is our primary use case?GTM and LTM are the primary uses of the solution. Our company has two active data centers and a data center that is being activated. F5 BIG-IP helps us a lot.How has it helped my organization?Global DNS, Link Controller, and Server Load Balancer provide our company service with high availability.What is most valuable?Valuable features include Link Controller and Server Load Balancer with cloud support and application enhancement security.What needs improvement?Internet and cloud support could be improved. Security enhancement should be more user friendly.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-07-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byChiefSecd99d from It is a central point of entry for our user base providing user authenticationWhat is our primary use case?We use it for brokering services.How has it helped my organization?It has made it a single entry point for all users, verging across all the VPCs. It is more of an SSO solution versus multitier user loggin.What is most valuable?* Central point of entry for our user base.* User authentication* PPI* Integration with our website.What needs improvement?We would like to have integration into encryption and PKI integration with SafeNet. That is probably the key component in using External PKIs, letting people bring their PKIs with them. On the back-end, we have a SafeNet component. They are going to bring additional features in, so allowing integration with encryption and PKI, and tying it back into Microsoft AD in the back with an LDAP lookup for users.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?The stability seems fine. We provide fault tolerance with HA, so we have two of them up and running. We have built in integration. Therefore, we do not worry about workload issuesWhat do I think about the scalability of the solution?It seems very scalable now. We have 200 users, going to about 10,000 within the next year. There are multiple VPCs and multiple AWS accounts.How was the initial setup?The integration and configuration of the product in our AWS environment seems to be pretty straightforward. There doesn't seem to be anything complex. We haven't needed anything additional, like Professional Services.What about the implementation team?We did use technical support on the original engineering.What was our ROI?We have seen ROI because we are not hosting it. We moved this to the cloud for our ingest, so our workload is moving to the cloud and Amazon.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was good. We chose to go through the AWS Marketplace because everything that we needed was a soft appliance. We needed something to work in Amazon, and this product was available there.We have found the pricing and licensing on AWS to be competitive.Which other solutions did I evaluate?We looked at F5, Citrix, and VMware. We chose F5 because it has a better market name, seemed to be vendor-agnostic for providing capabilities that others didn't, and its reputation.What other advice do I have?Use F5. It has a good reputation. We experienced easy implementation and had an overall good experience.We use it only on AWS.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-12-30T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byShivSingh from It renders policy-based security management but requires improvement in policy-based controlWhat is our primary use case?We are primarily using it for load balancing, and with BIG-IQ managing Layer 7 security policies.How has it helped my organization?We did get good flexibility as well as the capabilities to accept declarative API and create per app dashboard and create a better view on the telemetry dashboard.What is most valuable?* Cloud templates* Declarative onboarding* API service gateway* Policy-based security management.What needs improvement?Services to be improved:* Multi-cloud consistency, like to simplify administration with centralized policies with multi-cloud vendors* F5 lateral scalability within the container is still restricted.* Web application firewalls and service mesh would be a nice-to-have feature.* Drive programmable application with 100% restful API* Cover deployment* Monitoring* Policy-based control.For how long have I used the solution?Trial/evaluations only.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-02-19T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byBachir Elsitt from One box with many features including LTM, ASM, and GTMWhat is our primary use case?F5 delivers a full range of solutions that simplify service providers’ security architectures while mitigating threats. The full proxy architecture of F5 solutions also allows service providers to attain extensive visibility and control throughout layers 4 through 7. This enables granular control of all connections, more extensive security functionality, and comprehensive end-to-end protection against DDoS and other attacks. F5 solutions protect targeted network elements, the DNS infrastructure, devices, and applications with features that include application health monitoring, a robust web application firewall, web access controls, TCP optimization, web acceleration, L7 DDoS protection, and broad SSL support, including SSL inspection and offload.How has it helped my organization?I installed F5 on the DMZ zone of the firewall. The traffic will come to the virtual server of the F5. F5 will decrypt the traffic and offload the traffic to the firewall as clear.This way, we can mitigate many attacks from the F5 and from the firewall.What is most valuable?Protection of published website. When using ASM, we can have a layer 7 protection in order to prevent the website from attacks.What needs improvement?F5 should improve or develop the reporting tools further.They should improve the management policies on the BOX.For how long have I used the solution?Three to five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It's a stable product.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?They have one box and you can implement many features with it like LTM, ASM, GTM. So it is scalable. And they have a virtual edition and an appliance edition.How is customer service and technical support?Technical support is a seven out of 10. They provide quick solutions and they reply to us very fast.How was the initial setup?Straightforward.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?It's fair, it's not too expensive. Maybe just a little high.What other advice do I have?It's a good product to use. It has many features so can use it to secure your environment. I'm satisfied with the product.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.Partner.
Date published: 2018-08-02T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byGirish Vyas from The product was designed to allow newbies to configure it, and it is properly documented.What is our primary use case?This product has helped us build robust solutions for what my company does.How has it helped my organization?We are fond of the load balancing feature for DNS and servers. Also, these can help you natting/hiding the real IP.What is most valuable?I have been working on the LTM and GTM lines. Both of the products are awesome. I would consider the Wide IP and ZoneRunner features of GTM extremely useful.For the overall product, I would say provisioning is a good feature. There are other modules, which are good and people might want to try, such as APM and ASM. They are used for firewall and SSL VPN.What needs improvement?The only area that has room for improvement would be pricing.Other than that, the v11 clustering is a new technology they have brought in that does not require improvement. They are the leader in the space.For how long have I used the solution?Three to five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?We did not find any stability issues while working on it.Bugs are part of any solution and they are fixed with every release, as with any vendor.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?I have not encountered any scalability issues.How is customer service and technical support?Customer Service:We used to work with support three years back and it was not that great then. Hopefully, the situation has now improved.Technical Support:We did not require much technical support, as the product has good documentation. However, the experience with support as compared to other vendors was not excellent, but usable.Which solutions did we use previously?Regarding load balancing, this was our first product.How was the initial setup?If you do not understand the design of this product, initial setup is tricky. If you do understand it, initial setup is straightforward.What about the implementation team?This was implemented by an in-house team.What was our ROI?With the new pricing model, ROI was low, hence we switched.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?This product is costly from a licensing perspective considering its competitors. This is why it lost a rating point from me.If your IT budget can support it, go for it.What other advice do I have?Attend a training class before trying to deploy it, or at least refer to online videos on their portal, as this will make it fairly easy for you.It is one of the best and easiest load balancing solutions. The product was designed to allow newbies to configure it, and it is properly documented.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-09-14T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byit_user617790 from Its advantages are load balancing and application visibility while security and reporting need improvementWhat is most valuable?* LTM for balancing* ASM for WAFHow has it helped my organization?I'm a system integrator, not a customer. Usually F5 meets customer expectations well. It's best of breed and an industry leader.What needs improvement?Security and Reporting.For how long have I used the solution?As a pre-sale engineer, I'm not working with the F5 solution but I'm studying F5's features and competitor benchmarking.What do I think about the stability of the solution?When WAF is enabled, you can see a decrease in performance.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?Not to date.How is customer service and technical support?Very good.Which solutions did we use previously?Citrix NetScaler. F5 supports better features, from load balancing to security and application visibility. NetScaler is better with a VDI solution.How was the initial setup?Not applicable.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?F5 is more expensive than other solutions, so you have to be sure F5 is the best solution to fit the requirements.Which other solutions did I evaluate?Citrix, RadWare, and LBL.What other advice do I have?You need the right skills to deploy it. Complex deployment requires TCL language knowledge.Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:I'm a pre-sale engineer for a reseller.
Date published: 2017-11-22T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 bySamar Choudhury from With the roll back option, I can view the last things which happened on the deviceWhat is our primary use case?We have around 12 data centers. On average, in every data center, we have 14 to 15 F5 load balancers. We manage everything from a central location, then we deploy policy for use, giving us a place for our control managers.What is most valuable?I have Big-IP change and control manager, which give me the roll back option. Therefore, I can view the last things which happened on the device.What needs improvement?In future, I would like there to be more device security. I would like the tool to support SSL links, along with SSL and TLS. It also needs to disable the old cipher suite, which is a very old. There are ciphers, like D5, still available on the device.For how long have I used the solution?Three to five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?We have faced security stability issues, but we work around it.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?It is very scalable.How is customer service and technical support?F5 tech support is helpful. I would rate the technical support with an eight out of 10.Which solutions did we use previously?We used to have Cisco, then we have Citrix NetScaler. The Citrix NetScaler is just a load balancer. It did not me the complete ADC features. That is why F5 is the king of load balancing.How was the initial setup?The initial setup was pretty straightforward; not complex.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?Security should be involved in any base license. When you bring on F5, you only have default license. Then, the ASM product license has to be purchased. It would be great if F5 could include the ASM in the base license.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-08-02T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byNt3210Sec8 from Gives a "story" of our status, but we need details on how to reduce false positivesWhat is our primary use case?Primary use case is as our main protection. You can use it for brute force and other kinds of cross-site attacks.How has it helped my organization?It gives us something like a "story" of our status because we can see a lot of bad traffic and, in the logs, if someone is trying to execute something.What is most valuable?Most important is that it stops very common attacks which can be performed by a simple hacker, and up to the advanced level.What needs improvement?We need best-practice information. They have something called DevCentral and a blog. But we want something from F5 itself regarding how to tackle the false-positive configurations. If you go into detail with so many configurations it will find so many false positives from the moment it is enabled that it will quickly impact your applications, and it will not work.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?Overall, it's stable. There are cases which are not so much about stability but, rather, about functionality and false positives.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?No issues with scalability.Which other solutions did I evaluate?It has many features compared to other products.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-08-02T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byNetwork8776 from Alert notification window notifies of any issues and will then resolve themWhat is our primary use case?We use F5 BIG-IP with LTM burst, SM burst, and ETM burst. We use it in our cloud service and all our service centers. We even offer F5 BIG-IP to our partners.How has it helped my organization?As a firm, we use F5 BIG-IP to provide load balancing over many to increase one of the hardware appliances that carries loads over the throughput they are providing.Ultimately, the service has not affected our customers. However, there was a failure in one of the nodes that became infected.F5 BIG-IP did not sense that the virus was there. The security didn't function.What is most valuable?F5 BIG-IP is used with good applications and functions as an application firewall with additional features.I've been building F5 BIG-IP. We will not use any feature or any service unless there is a business case and there is a need for business implementation.What needs improvement?The products are great and easy to upgrade from time to time to improve functionality. F5 BIG-IP is working fine. We use it more in production and operations.There are issues with F5 BIG-IP but they are minor issues, not big ones. This does not affect production and services.Sometimes the operations and the facility systems fail. However, there is an alert action from the windows.Related to the groups, when it comes to cost, rates are regulated. When the market is not good, then we will consider doing the increase.In general, there are more features that could be provided with F5 BIG-IP if it were not so costly.From application to application to customer respects, you can't always customize software based on customer requirements. If you don't consider that, you can't deliver.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?F5 BIG-IP is very stable.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?F5 BIG-IP has good scalability. We have a team managing the product. The team consists of three specialists, but they do not manage that many customers, they manage customers.How are customer service and technical support?We're beginning to align well with F5 BIG-IP. I've been in contact with customer service.I have notifications from the alert window and all of the issues would be resolved.How was the initial setup?The initial setup is not straightforward. You can consider F5 BIG-IP as a standard. It is not complex. In the end, the product itself is serving the business and services.What about the implementation team?For deployment, we used one engineer only. The main point to consider is the client's position. We have to respect the client's business requirements.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?5 BIG-IP is too expensive at the current licensing costs.Which other solutions did I evaluate?We did not evaluate other options but chose 5 BIG-IP on basis of merit.What other advice do I have?We use F5 BIG-IP a lot in production right now. The product is indispensable to us.I would rate the product an overall nine out of ten. Most of the benefits of F5 BIG-IP are cyclical because of the licensing costs.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-04-09T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 bySolutiond87c from It can determine if the system is going down, then route the traffic somewhere elseWhat is our primary use case?We are using it for load balancing and security.When someone requests data through the load balancer, we pull the certificate name out to identify who that person is. This is one of the things that F5 does. We haven't able to replicate this so far with the Amazon products. That is why we are going to F5.How has it helped my organization?It has the ability to do the security work that we need along with the current thing which is supporting the load balancer. Therefore, it can determine if the system is going down, then route the traffic somewhere else.It does what we need.What is most valuable?We had a problem where customers were doing transactions in our system, pulling health records, and the system had to be shut down for maintenance. Unfortunately, we wouldn't know that the system was being shut down, and we would lose that information. Then, the customer would get upset.Using the F5, we were able to build rules to detect that the shutdown was occurring, then begin to route people elsewhere, so we didn't have any outages or downtime. This made customers a lot happier, and it made us a lot happier.What needs improvement?They could improve the product's ease of use. There has been a bit of complication on some things from the admin side. There is some confusion how to operate it.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?I don't think too much stress placed on it. In F5 Studio, the stability been very good.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?We run 14 servers. We get up to about half a million transactions an hour, and the scalability has been good. It has not been a problem.How is customer service and technical support?I would rate the technical support as a five out of ten. Our admin had to learn everything and do it himself. He seems to have had difficultly at times with the tech support. However, this may be a manifestation of the fact the government bought it, but didn't buy the support.How was the initial setup?The integration and configuration of this product were pretty good. Once you get going, it gets easier to use.It works with Red Hat JBoss application server, and it integrates reasonably well.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?It is sort of a commodity product. A load balancer is a load balancer. What will be, at the end of the day, the cheapest option or have the best performance, that is what it will come down to. Can it do the necessary performance that we need, and if so, is there a cheaper alternative? If not, then we'll stick with what we have.Which other solutions did I evaluate?We also evaluated some free stuff on the AWS Marketplace, or some cheaper stuff. We also looked at the Amazon offerings, like the Elastic Load Balancing.The customer wanted to take what they had on-premise and put it in Amazon: full stop. Because we could obtain the certifications for security and the existing Amazon products didn't do 100 percent of what F5 did, they didn't want us to change any code. They just wanted us to keep going the way we were. This is the reason why we pulled F5 over.What other advice do I have?Try doing a proof of concept or a prototype, before you go full in on a load balancer, to make sure it does everything you need.We have both the AWS and on-premise versions. We used the on-premise version to compare it to what Amazon had to offer.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-12-24T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byit_user442209 from The iRules feature helps routing meet our complex application’s architecture. It logs all of the details, which helps troubleshooting.Valuable FeaturesiRules are so helpful in meeting our complex application’s architecture in case of routing. The requests have to be routed according to the cookies and headers of the host name itself. And also we can log the details, which helps us a lot in troubleshooting.Using the “repeat” option when creating multiple virtual servers, we are able to create as many virtual IPs as we can as we go. This reduces a lot of configuration time.Improvements to My OrganizationMy organization has various kinds of routing requirements and we have achieved it using F5’s iRules. Also with different load balancing options, many applications have benefited a lot.Room for ImprovementActive-Standby sync has to be made automatic.All of the F5 boxes have an Active-Standby configuration. Users need to make changes in the Active box, but often users by mistake make changes in the Standby box. This creates problems when syncing between Active and Standby. There should be some indication from the F5 tool to avoid such mistakes.Use of SolutionI have used it for the past year.Customer Service and Technical SupportAll of the support I require is available on the internet.Other AdviceThe BigIP F5 tool is applicable to all types of infrastructure. I would recommend this tool to others.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-08-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byEric Foote from Load balancing brings high availability and a bigger ability to scale outWhat is our primary use case?When we migrate workloads into the cloud, we need the same functionality in the cloud, and low balancing is part of that. Being able to manage the platform on cloud, the same as on-premise, is the use case.How has it helped my organization?Load balancing generally brings high availability and a bigger ability to scale out. In some cases, it brings security, depending on how it is configured.What is most valuable?* Flexibility* Capacity* Reputation in the market.What needs improvement?I would like them to expand load balancing, being able to go across multiple regions to on-premise and into the cloud. This could use improvement, as it is sometimes a little cumbersome.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It is very stable. It's a pretty solid product.Our clients use it pretty heavily. Most all of them are production workloads and some of them are external facing workloads, so you can see seasonal peaks.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?It's very scalable. Probably the largest implementation I did was with hundreds of servers behind it.How is customer service and technical support?The technical support is very good.What about the implementation team?We haven't had any issues with the integration and configuration of AWS. It works just like it would on-premise. I have some questions around its scale in the cloud. We haven't done as much work in the cloud as we've done with on-premise. However, so far we haven't had any problems with it either.What was our ROI?My clients have seen ROI.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?It could be priced a little less, especially on the virtual side. It gets a bit expensive, but you get what you pay.Which other solutions did I evaluate?There is always the Cisco on-premise solution in play. There are also the AWS native functionalities.The ease of management is the tie-breaker for F5, being able to manage the on-premise and cloud with the same tools.It's fairly easy to integrate. If you compare it to Cisco products, Cisco is very regimented and works best with themselves. F5 has been forced to play nice with others, which is a bonus.What other advice do I have?The three key things to look at closely:* Look at the flexibility of the products.* The ability to work with it on-premise and in the cloud is a huge advantage.* The ability to integrate it with other non-F5 products.We use both the AWS and on-premise versions. They work about the same, which is what I like about the product: same management plane and configuration.It integrates with the networking layer, which is fairly complicated. Depending on the customer, there are different products that it integrates with. More often than not, it's load balancing in front of Windows in Unix. In some cases, integrating with other tools like the LP or other network products.Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner.
Date published: 2018-12-10T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byit_user109836 from The interface is intuitive and well structured. It is not overloaded with too many gimmicks.Improvements to My OrganizationCentral solution to control traffic or web applications (besides NG Firewall).Valuable Features* Easy administration* A lot of features* Scriptable (iRules and REST API)I have some experience with other load balancing providers. The BIG-IP’s interface is more intuitive than other GUIs. It is well structured, not overloaded, and does not have too many gimmicks.Room for ImprovementThe ASM administration is quite complex. I am a technical GUI expert (not UI). They did improve the ASM administration in each version, but added new features, too. The topic itself is pretty complex, so it is not easy to provide a nice, clean interface. There are a lot of references and dependencies in-between the different subareas.Stability IssuesI have not yet encountered any stability issues.Scalability IssuesI have not yet encountered any scalability issues.Customer Service and Technical SupportTechnical support is good. I have had nothing to complain about up until now.Previous SolutionsI previously used a different solution. We switched because the hardware was too old, and the other vendor did not have the same set of features.Initial SetupInitial setup was straightforward. We were up and running in three hours.Pricing, Setup Cost and LicensingTake a look at the modules that you are going to use. Look into the best bundles for them.Other Solutions ConsideredBefore choosing this product ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/f5-big-ip ), I compared it with Radware ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/radware ). Cisco ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/cisco ) was already off the market, and Citrix was not as big as it is today.Other AdviceUse the community and DevCentral.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-09-19T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byit_user223881 from The Local Traffic Manager provides the means and the intelligence to load balance based on advanced logicPrimary Use CasePrimary use case for the product is high availability and load sharing of applications to be serviced. Also, it provides application security by use of the Application Security Manager.Improvements to My OrganizationIt has enabled us to keep a sustainable and supported load balancing platform. This is partly due to Cisco ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/cisco ) withdrawing a large number of their load balancing products and also related to Microsoft Network Load Balancing not scaling enough to suit our needs.Valuable FeaturesThe most valuable feature is the F5 LTM (Local Traffic Manager). This is the part of the product ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/f5-big-ip ) most organisations will be using most. It provides the core functionality to be able to load balance services and the means and the intelligence to be able to load balance based on advanced logic, e.g., TCL scripting.The F5 GTM/BIGIP DNS (Global Traffic Manager) is another valuable feature. This feature allows for DNS load balancing, which means that high availability and load sharing can be done across services locally, as well as across datacenters with advanced capabilities.Room for ImprovementI would like F5 ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/f5 ) to incorporate the ability to create your own custom roles and customised permissions within the product set. I have seen many customers wanting to give a certain level of access for the purposes of out-of-hours servicing to out-of-hours staff or teams that fulfill an operations type role.For example, I would like to see the ability to create roles within F5 where I can specify permissions instead of choosing from a set list that does not always fit my organisation’s needs. The current roles available out-of-the-box do not allow for enough granularity for an operator role to take pool resources offline and push or commit those changes to the configuration/HA cluster. Every role within the F5 that can make changes should be able to commit those changes if the administrator(s) permits.Use of SolutionThree to five years.Stability IssuesStability has never been an issue with F5 BIG-IP. The product is geared predominantly at providing stability and resiliency across your infrastructure.Scalability IssuesNo issues with scalability ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/f5-big-ip/by_topic/scalability_issues ) have been encountered. I would say that this has largely been due to having a good F5 consultant and consultancy throughout the buying process and implementation. This has ensured that the product being purchased can scale past our current needs and fulfill potential future needs.Customer Service and Technical SupportI would give a 10 out of 10. Technical support through F5 is very thorough. On most occasions, the F5 DevCentral and support website generally gives you a lot of the expertise that you need without having to raise a support ticket. If you ever reach the stage of needing to raise a support ticket, you usually are handed quickly to someone who is able to deal with your query as efficiently as possible.Previous SolutionsPreviously, I have used Cisco load balancing, e.g., Cisco CSM, Cisco ACE, Microsoft Network Load Balancing, and Cisco GSS. Previously, Cisco load balancing or Microsoft NLB had always been the preferred options. However, since Cisco discontinued most of their load balancing products, it makes it very difficult to find products of the same grade and functionality. Since we began using F5 that gap in functionality has been filled. With F5, you get not just standard load balancing, but an array of other highly useful products to boot.Pricing, Setup Cost and LicensingThe licensing pricing seems relatively easy enough to get your head around. I would advise anyone to ensure that you have a conversation with an F5 consultant before purchasing, as you would with most products. An F5 consultant is the best placed to understand your needs and ensure that you purchase the correct licensing and products for your requirements.Other Solutions ConsideredWe did evaluate other options. We had already used products such as NetScaler, Microsoft NLB, and a vast array of Cisco load balancing products. F5 was chosen due to the level of power that the product has. I have not seen many single solutions that fulfill all the criteria that an F5 BIG-IP appliance can.It is not superior to its competitors due to how advanced the features are and the modules that can be used. The product can be used with iRules, which are an advanced ways of making functions available on a load balancer via use of scripting in TCL.Other AdviceI would strongly advise seeking technical consultation throughout purchasing and during implementation. This is usually because you can get good advice around best practises as well as utilising as much of the F5 features as possible. In some cases, you might even find yourself finding a solution to scenarios that you might not have been aware had a solution.I rated this product four and a half stars, because of the level of advanced features available in the product versus cost. Though functionality is high, its cost can be considered slightly higher than its competitors.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-08-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 bySathiya Shunmugasundaram from It supports APIs and virtual additions for cloud and VMwareWhat is our primary use case?We use it for load balancing and routing.How has it helped my organization?It supports APIs and virtual additions for cloud and VMware.It integrates with various firewall and networking devices along with application services, and it works fine.What is most valuable?* Routing* Load balancingWhat needs improvement?* Cloud native integration should be provided.* Native support for containers should be added to future releases, as this is the future of load balancing.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?The stability is great. We put our production load on it, which is very stressful.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?Scalability has been great. We have thousands of severs. F5 has scaled very well.How is customer service and technical support?They provide average enterprise technical support.Which other solutions did I evaluate?I also evaluated Cisco, but chose F5 because it had better features in terms of load balancing. I liked the various features in F5, including input/output routing, load balancing, and global load balancing.What other advice do I have?Explore the API support and integration with the open source products. Those are the key thing to analyze. F5 are the experts in their area.I use the on-premise version.Disclaimer: IT Central Station contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Date published: 2018-12-11T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byAliaksei Shyshkou from Local Traffic Manager load balances our web applications, does SSL decryption, and application adjustingWhat is our primary use case?There is more than one use case. The most important is the Local Traffic Manager (LTM). We are using it to load balance our web applications, SSL decryption and application adjusting, along with some TCP features. We are also load balancing traffic between appropriate back-ends for risk.How has it helped my organization?We can use it for load balancing purposes on an HA proxy software. However, hardware load balancing is the best way due to some hardware flaws for incoming traffic. We are not using CPU resources for a load balancing SSL decryption and adjusting some parameters for incoming and outgoing traffic. F-5 has a lot of appliances, which can be used for appropriate tasks, e.g., for big tasks, we can use Vipiron devices. As well, we have a lot of software blades, which can be divided into virtual clusters, multi-purposes, etc.What is most valuable?We are using the Big-IP, LTM, ASM, and GTM modules.* The Local Traffic Manager (LTM) provides a simple low balance and SSL decryption, in addition to some TCP parameters, for incoming and outgoing traffic to redirect appropriate traffic patterns to appropriate servers.* We are using Application Security Manager (ASM) as a web application firewall, where there is a security signature to avoid a web level breach.* We are using global traffic manager (GTM). Its main use cases is for application firewall modules, therefore we are not using it yet, but we are going to implement it for DDoS protection on some of our web services.What needs improvement?I would like to see F-5 implement a regular routing like in other Linux-based devices. We know the F-5 is not a router, but can be used for traffic forwarding, so it's not the same as other devices if we compare it with Citrix-based devices. It is a simple Linux-based routing software. I don't have any problems with it. However, in F-5, when we try and integrate in some complex networks, we have to use some additional routing scenarios from a Layer 3 perspective, then we have some problems. It would be great if this were fixed somehow.We have to keep in mind features when we deploy an F-5 solution. Designing the same approach in Citrix can often be simpler. I have written syntax in F-5 which were complicated; not straightforward. For example, in a Citrix device, we have a lot of predefined patterns, and it's much simpler to implement.For how long have I used the solution?Three to five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?We have not had issues with the stability, though we have experienced issues with the flexibility.How is customer service and technical support?The support of F-5 is fine. In comparison with Citrix, F-5 technical support is much better.Which solutions did we use previously?We previously used Citrix NetScaler:* Citrix NetScaler SDX, which can be divided in multiple instances.* Citrix VPX.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?The licensing strategy for F5 is good.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-07-30T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byJiri Kermes from We plan to create packages of services. Improvements will allow the customers to have tailor-made solutions.What is our primary use case?Implementing load balancing services inside managed hosting services based on VMware solutions. The solution is presented as IaaS. F5 BIG-IP VE will be implemented in cooperation with the Cisco ACI solution.How has it helped my organization?F5 will improve our position in the customer service market. We plan to create packages of services from which it will be possible to build comprehensive tailor-made solutions.What is most valuable?Beyond the basic balancing function, other modules are important to us. In particular, a web application firewall, application security module, and a remote access module for customer applications.What needs improvement?As a service provider, we will target F5 BIG-IP VE solutions to customers who request infrastructure as a service. Improvements should enable customers to build a tailor-made solution in the future through a service portal.For how long have I used the solution?Still implementing.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-03-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byDirector1e9d from It is the centerpiece of a lot of the solutions that we buildWhat is our primary use case?We use it for a number of solutions that we build, mostly for identity and access management control.How has it helped my organization?It is the centerpiece of a lot of the solutions that we build, and it has integrated with everything that we have needed it to.It is the best value for our engineers and architects who know how to use it. It meets the government's requirements every time that we've used it. It is easy for us to keep integrating with our solutions.What is most valuable?We have found the consistency of the application always being the way it is supposed to be as its most valuable feature.For how long have I used the solution?More than five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?We put a lot of stress on the application. It is very stable.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?The scalability is awesome. Our environment is thousands upon thousands of instances in AWS.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace was very simple. The main reason that we went this way was the simplicity of buying it there. It is maintained and upgraded for us, and this makes it easy to stay current.While the licensing is good through the AWS Marketplace, it is more expensive than what you could buy yourself. However, the convenience outweighs the price.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-12-11T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byGuojun Jin from Using the product, applications are jittery. Initial setup is easy and pretty standard.What is our primary use case?This is for remote access to an internal network of the organization to do all types of work. The requirement for VPN is secure with high performance.How has it helped my organization?Two issues found in using BIG-IP VPN compared with Cisco VPN:* Performance: Two applications are being used: remote desktop (RDP or rdesktop) and VNC viewer. Comparisons are done on the same client machines (Windows 10 and Linux 16.04) over the same network. When using Cisco VPN, applications are working smoothly while occasionally jittery. When using F5 VPN, applications are quite jittery. Sometimes applications are useless (too slow to refresh the screen).* Client support: Cisco VPN has more Clients supported than BIG-IP, e.g., BSD.What is most valuable?Still not clear why our IT decided to switch to F5 BIG-IP after two years experience. It appears as if there may be some advantage (possibly) related to security concerns (more secure?).What needs improvement?Performance is the first thing and most critical issue that needs improvement.Supporting more Clients would be nice, but without improving performance, F5 will not widely be used for critical work. It killed an international meeting the first time that we used BIG-IP VPN.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?Performance: Using the product, applications are jittery.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?No issues.Which solutions did we use previously?We used Cisco VPN. I am not sure why our IT forced us to switch to F5 without our feedback.How was the initial setup?Initial setup is easy and pretty standard. Setup is not much different from all other VPNs.What about the implementation team?In-house.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?Unless the price difference is large, this is not the primary concern for the product. The performance and product-related issues (secure for VPN, multi-function for network device, etc.) are the keys.Which other solutions did I evaluate?No.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-03-06T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byGeorgesSamaha from iRule performs some traffic control and management functions that are not supported out of the box.Primary Use CaseWe mainly use the following F5 modulesISP environments:* CGNAT* DNS firewall* Load balancer* WAF to be sold as a service to their clientsEnterprise environments:* Web application firewall* Load balancer* Application policy manager* Fraud protection (Web and mobile)* DDoS (on-premise, and cloud-based)Valuable FeaturesiRule: It's a great feature that helped us multiple times have an advantage over competition (during PoCs) performing some traffic control/management functions that are not supported out of the box. Use Case: One client was deploying a new web app, where video/chat Traffic is configured over the SOCKS protocol. We used iRule to disable the WAF Inspection when a SOCKS protocol packet passed through (because it is not supported), and enable the WAF Inspection for all other URLs on the same Web page. (No other vendor in our region was able to provide that.)Appliance Performance: One of the main advantages we always have over competition is in hardware performance, where the smallest F5 appliances ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/vendors/f5 ) compete with competitors’ medium to high-end appliances, while high-end devices can sit in the datacenter without risking performance degradation.Room for Improvement* Reporting: One of the negative things about F5 is there is no place to generate a summary/executive/detailed report about everything happening on the box, especially for WAF & APM events. The only way to get some kind of report is enable the AVR module, and manually export the data required into PDF/XLS documents.* GUI interface: F5 appliances lack a standard dashboard page, where it shows a summary for all events on the boxes. (This is usually available with firewalls & IPSs...) In the F5 GUI, we have to perform multiple steps to reach the required info, but there is no simple (and attractive) GUI interface when compared to some other WAF competitors.* Event notificationsStability IssuesI have not encountered any stability issues. It is a very stable product, even in big, high-load deployments. What I mean is that all F5 Hardware appliances are very stable and does not cause any performance degradation or failure when it has a high load (Of course a supported load).We have deployment for different modules of F5 (LTM, ASM, CGNAT...) in Data Centers and in Telco's Public network, and we have never heard any complaints or of issues from our clients regarding the performance. - no packet drops, delays or disconnections.Scalability IssuesWe only encountered issues with small appliances, 2000s, when we needed to add more than two modules...Customer Service and Technical SupportTechnical support ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/f5-big-ip/by_topic/technical_support ) is great.Previous SolutionsWe previously used Cisco ACE (for load balancing & WAF). We switched because the Cisco ACE solution features were very basic compared to F5. Plus, the solutions line was discontinued several years ago.Initial SetupInitial setup is straightforward; easy deployment with lots of available online documentation.Pricing, Setup Cost and LicensingF5 Prices are considered higher then competitive solutions, but performance & features are worth the extra money.Other Solutions ConsideredOver our year of engagement with F5, we evaluated multiple products from other vendors and competed with many others, and we always found F5 products to be our first and best choice to advise our customers to use, with respect to:* Performance, protection, stability, scalability* Being modular based, for a better long term investmentF5 is dedicated to a specific technology line, which makes it the best of breed in the application delivery market. F5's main business is always focused on application delivery, whether in availability, security, or performance.Other AdviceF5 is a very stable and recommended product, whether needed on the internet edge or inside the data center. It can provide different application delivery solutions, such as:* Load balancing* Web application firewall* Access policy manager* Web fraud* DDoS protection.I rate it nine out of 10 because we are an F5 partner, and we have been selling and deploying different F5 modules for different industry vectors. In any deployment we always had a great customer experience, mainly in the following areas:* performance stability* overall stability* rich features in the appliances, that customers can benefit from.It's a modular-based appliance. You can double the performance specs by a license upgrade, and regarding features you can add a license for additional modules (E.g.: Web application firewall, application policy manager, fraud, DDoS). In general, for a client doing a proper ROI over five years, F5 appliances become their preferred choice.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-08-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byErez Bar On from Helps us recognize sessions from certain IPs that are authorized to manage our applicationWhat is our primary use case?We use it as an LTM and as a reverse proxy to publish web services.How has it helped my organization?It helps us recognize sessions from certain IPs that are authorized to manage the application. This is a function we haven't found anywhere else.What is most valuable?The most helpful thing is that it's open-source. It's very easy to program and customize.What needs improvement?Logging is a bit of a problem. Logging and monitoring are only in plain text. You have to search and you have to know what you are searching for to find anything. So of course, monitoring and getting alerts for abnormal situations is hard. There are no tools for monitoring and alerts. If you have problems and you need to diagnose them, you really have to know what you're looking for in order to find it.Logging and monitoring could be something out-of-the-box that are more accessible.For how long have I used the solution?Three to five years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?Stability is one of the advantages. It's very stable.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?We haven't bumped into scalability issues. The limitation is actually through licensing. Throughput is limited by licensing. We had an error with the license and we reached the limit but we fixed that. But there has never been trouble with the capacity or scalability.How is customer service and technical support?I have never used technical support directly. I use F5 through integration services and there were a few times they didn't know how to resolve an issue and they had to turn to support. But there were answers every time.Which solutions did we use previously?We used Microsoft Gateway called CMG. This product was end-of-life, they decided to kill the product. We switched because there is no other solution that does the same thing.How was the initial setup?It was complex compared to the Microsoft system. But after we learned the product and understood how it works, it worked seamlessly.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?We only use a fraction of the capabilities of F5. There are different modules that we have heard others speak highly of, but we don't want to use them locally. It's an on-premise server. For example, there is a WAF (web application firewall) model and others that we don't use.It's not a cheap product, but there are no other replacements for what we do with it.Which other solutions did I evaluate?We checked other options, but nothing could deliver the solution we need.What other advice do I have?I would advise excessive testing before moving to production. It's a new product, it's a "language." You have to learn the product thoroughly before you really can implement it.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-07-30T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byRobert Smith from The integration and configuration into the AWS environment was pretty good. However, we are ending up with a whole bunch of ghosted IPs.What is our primary use case?We use it for low balancing.It has been in our environment for four to five years, but I have only been using it for a little over a year.What is most valuable?* The detail that you have available when setting up iRules.* How the traffic routing works in F5.What needs improvement?The management process seems a bit difficult.The management interface is unclear, complex, and not concise. I would like a better user interface.For integration with other AWS environments, we do some tie-ins with some autoscaling groups. This has been challenging for us. We have had issues, where when autoscaling groups scale up, there are some instances which are not showing up in the proper size. Then, those IPs would get registered with F5, but never get released. Therefore, we are ending up with a whole bunch of ghosted IPs. However, this is more an implementation detail than an F5 detail.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It is very stable. I have no concerns regarding stability for F5.We are seasonal, so we go from low to high volumes. F5 has never been a concern of ours for stability.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?We run an Active-Active version of two instances, so scalability between the on-premise and AWS versions hasn't been a huge issue for us. Where we are finding the AWS version helpful is when we are trying to scale up new environments. AWS Marketplace helps here a lot.How is customer service and technical support?We have support agreements in place, but they are managed by the infrastructure team. I do not contact the technical support, they do.How was the initial setup?The integration and configuration into the AWS environment was pretty good.Which other solutions did I evaluate?The product was already in place when I came onboard.My preference is to use AWS natively, but there are some issues around session management and so on, which have prevented us from using it. While a lot of these issues have been solved, a lot of our applications are tied to the F5 infrastructure.What other advice do I have?Always use the Automatic Synching between F5. Don't try to use the API to do the synching. This is where we went wrong. We were trying to push the nodes to F5 individually instead of letting F5 handle the synchronization process, and it doesn't work.We were previously using the on-premise version, but now we are using the AWS version. They are about the same as far as functionality.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-12-09T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byLuis Henriquez from It integrates with AWS WAF, which makes it easy to deploy without changes to your infrastructureWhat is our primary use case?We use it to deliver services on the cloud.How has it helped my organization?It improves the overall performance of applications by decreasing the burden on servers associated with managing and maintaining applications and network sessions, as well as by performing application-specific tasks.What is most valuable?* Application security* Automation* Orchestration* It is a fast and available solution.What needs improvement?They have to scale, developing more products.I would like them to have more flexible models.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.What do I think about the stability of the solution?It is the perfect solution when you have high workloads in your IT environment.What do I think about the scalability of the solution?They have the potential to scale in better way.How was the initial setup?I have integrated F5 rules for AWS with web exploits and OWASP Rules, and it is so easy to deploy.What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?There are three relevant things about purchasing through the AWS Marketplace:* It Increase protection against web attacks.* It integrates with AWS WAF, which makes it easy to deploy without changes to your infrastructure.* F5 manages your AWS WAF rules, so you don't have to.We purchased through the AWS Marketplace because it was a popular way to go, and we were intrigued. The price of this product is not an issue. They have good pricing and licensing.What other advice do I have?It helps you to manage workloads in a better way on your cloud environment.I also have integrated it on my private cloud.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2019-01-14T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byit_user171753 from We use it’s LTM feature for many applications, especially HTTP and HTTPS. A bug in the firmware caused hardware failures.Valuable FeaturesLTM is a full-reverse proxy, handling connections from clients. The F5 LTM uses Virtual Services (VSs) and Virtual IPs (VIPs) to configure a load balancing setup for a service. We have used this feature in many applications, especially for HTTP and HTTPS.Room for ImprovementThere is room for improvement with their firmware quality control. A bug in the firmware caused hardware failures.Use of SolutionI have been using it for one year.Stability IssuesUnfortunately, we faced hardware failures and a lot of other problems, as well.With the hardware failure problem, we faced a management problem via the GUI. We could only manage the device through the CLI. The issue was caused by a firmware bug.In addition, health check statistics like CPU and memory utilization were not correct.It is F5’s responsibility to solve those problems, and I don’t know how they can release firmware with such bugs to their customers.Customer Service and Technical SupportF5 support can be rated low on the scale, as there is a problem regarding handover between their engineers when we follow-up with them about some technical cases.Other AdviceI recommend considering NetScaler ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/citrix-netscaler-adc ), as well.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2016-08-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of 5 byKay Jackels from Makes the publishing of applications to the Internet saferWhat is our primary use case?Publishing of many applications through the F5 reverse proxy to the Internet.We are also using the F5 as an IdP server.How has it helped my organization?* It makes the publishing of applications to the Internet safer.* Permanent updates give us more security.What is most valuable?* The automatic inspection of, e.g., SSL (TLS) traffic.* It is an easy way to build application policies (graphical).What needs improvement?It would help to get more training, even better in local languages. While we are able to speak and understand English, sometimes it is much easier to use the language you truly understand.For how long have I used the solution?One to three years.Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2018-05-27T00:00:00-04:00