F5 BIG-IP Short Range - SFP (mini-GBIC) transceiver module - 1GbE is rated
4.30 out of
5 by
95.
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Hilman Gunawan from
Has good support and valuable load balancing features
What is our primary use case?
Currently, we use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager as our traffic management solution. As a consultant, it is project-based with my clients rather than hands-on. Our clients use the solution to load balance their current application server in the DMZ and also in the data center.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the F5 BIG-IP LTM solution is load balancing.
What needs improvement?
To improve the product, they could add more load balancing solutions in Kubernetes.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP LTM for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP is a stable solution. It is quite mature and does not have many concerns.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is good. We use it for active and passive, and we also do some TCMP.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate technical support a four out of five. Their support is quite good, however, they could be a bit more responsive and react faster to requests.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The biggest concern for my clients is the pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing F5 BIG-IP, we compared the product with other vendors. We chose F5 BIG because of its technical support as well as its documentation. Their knowledge base is easy to read and access to information is available on their website. It is a complete product for an ADC solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the solution an eight out of ten and recommend this solution to users that are looking to use it.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-06-02T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Saurabh-Pal from
Accommodates enterprise-level scalability and easy initial setup
What is our primary use case?
For my clients, the primary use cases include load balancing, both for server and link load balancing.
What is most valuable?
We have used it to link two or three servers and make them communicable from outside. It works well as a load balancer.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in terms of stability. The F5 BIG-IP LTM allows multiple virtual machines to run on a single appliance. However, if one of those virtual portions fails, it can cause issues and impact the overall stability of the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with this solution for four years. I have worked with F5 as a system integrator, partner, and MSP.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. I would rate it an eight out of ten. Rather than having separate appliances for each virtual machine, the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) allows multiple virtual machines to run on one appliance. However, if one of those virtual portions is no longer available, it can cause issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. I would say it's around eight or nine out of ten. Our clients are at the enterprise level.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. I would rate the initial installation a nine out of ten, one being very difficult and ten being very easy.
What about the implementation team?
We installed the solution in a web-based environment and have implemented it in two data centers, one located in New Jersey and the other in a different location. We have used F5 for both firewall load balancing and link load balancing. We have two sets of F5 deployed at each location.
We completed the installation within a week with the help of a team of five people. At present, a team of five is managing and maintaining the solution in the data center and for the local portion.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is cheaper than the average on the market. I would rate it as a five since it is in the middle range, with ten being the most expensive. It is good, and the price is reasonable.
Moreover, I have only worked on five or six devices and have not dealt with licensing rules. However, in my previous job as a system integrator, I did work on local installations, which were relatively quick and inexpensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
In my opinion, the Radware product is also good. F5 and Alteon products are equally good, so I would rate them an eight.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend using the solution. Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:MSP (Managed Service Provider)
Date published: 2023-04-22T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1706595 from
Reliable, easy to set up, and allows us to create monitors and program iRules
What is our primary use case?
It is for internal load balancing of servers.
How has it helped my organization?
It provides load balancing. So, it potentially brings some performance improvement and high availability. If one server goes down, there is a seamless transition to the other one.
What is most valuable?
The load balancing function, the monitors that you can create, and iRules programmability are most valuable.
What needs improvement?
Its GUI could be a bit better. Other than that, it's already pretty good. We don't use it in a high-performance environment. So, we don't really care so much about too many features.
For how long have I used the solution?
It has been quite a few years. We might have been using it for six to eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has been stable and reliable. It has been working well for us.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable, but we didn't really need to scale. It met all the performance requirements we had. So, we had no issues where we were not able to add something.
Currently, its usage is quite low, but it's not because of the product. It's because of how our company works. In other words, how much we need to use it. It's not used a lot, and we don't plan to expand its usage.
How are customer service and support?
We did open some tickets, and usually, it was a very good experience.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
For load balancing, we previously had Cisco solutions. We had CSS and then Application Control Engine (ACE). We switched because they stopped that service. It was end-of-life, and Cisco discontinued that range.
How was the initial setup?
It was straightforward. I would rate it a five out of five in terms of the ease of setup.
There were no issues or obstacles, and its deployment was pretty fast. We had to do preparation of all the surroundings, such as the VLAN or IP assignment, but the deployment itself was just a couple of hours.
What about the implementation team?
We have a managed service provider, and they hired a consultant. We had some help there, but that was not just because of LPM. We also had other modules of F5. It was our initial or first experience with F5, and there were also other things to be migrated, which were much more complex than the LPM module. That's why the consultant was there.
For deployment, there was one person deploying it. For maintenance, we have a managed service provider. So, we have a team of people, but they're also looking at other devices and not just F5.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It was probably a one-time purchase and then you have maintenance, but I don't have the details on that. We bought what they called the Best bundle at the time, which pretty much included all of the modules. There was probably no additional cost afterward.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There were evaluations. There were Citrix NetScaler and Application Delivery Controller from A10 Networks, but in the end, F5 was chosen because of the virtualization environment that we were using at the time. We were using VMware, and we are still using it. They had better support for the VMware VDI solution. They were able to act as a gateway for the VMware VDI.
What other advice do I have?
One piece of advice would be that if you are not that much concerned with performance or you definitely don't need physical hardware, you can go for a virtual edition. It might save you the migration effort when the hardware is end-of-life.
If you need a load balancer, go for it. We didn't have any hurdles or obstacles. I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-05-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Md. Robiul Awoul from
Helpful support, reliable, but implementation could be easier
What is our primary use case?
We use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for the web application firewall and a load balancing system. We are using it in a government project.
What needs improvement?
There are not very many areas for improvement, but the price is high.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for approximately four months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) to be stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is a scalable solution.
We have approximately nine people using this solution in my organization.
How are customer service and support?
We have only opened up two support tickets with the support and on both occasions, they provided a good service.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) was complex and could be made easier. The full process took approximately three weeks.
What about the implementation team?
We used consultants for the implementation of the solution.
We have 10 to 12 managers supporting this solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is too high.
What other advice do I have?
I rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) a seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Integrator
Date published: 2022-05-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Priyesh MP from
Is a stable product from a stable company that is focusing more on security
What is most valuable?
It is a stable product from a stable company. Recently, they have been more focused on security as well.
What needs improvement?
Right now, there are a lot of products within F5's portfolio. They acquired a couple of companies like NGINX and Volterra. Some features and technologies overlapped when this acquisition occurred. They need to refine it and come up with a single, proper solution.
F5 should focus more on zero trust network access (ZTNA).They should be more focused on that framework because the industry is moving towards that. Everyone is talking about SASE and zero trust.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've worked with this solution for about two 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?
It is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
In my experience, I have received excellent support from F5 for any technical issues that I or my customers have faced. I have had no issues with technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price is little bit on higher side, compared to the cost of NGINX.
What other advice do I have?
If you are a partner, then I would recommend that you go through the partner portal videos because they have very good training videos that help you to learn the product and technology when it comes to implementation. It helps a lot with implementation, and they have detailed documentation that explains the implementation process step by step. Once you go through that, you'll definitely have a clear understanding of the implementation process. Without that, it may be a little bit tricky for you to complete the implementation in a smooth manner.
I would rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) at eight on a scale from one to ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-06-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1441791 from
Good support, stable, and facilitates the management of our network
What is our primary use case?
Our company is based in different geographical locations and we need to create SD-WANs with tight security while allowing remote access to our resources. To manage that and to manage the whole network, we use BIG-IP.
What needs improvement?
When we purchased the product, we found it to be a bit expensive.
If we decide to migrate to the cloud, I don't think that BIG-IP is a good solution and we probably won't use it.
If the price for a cloud-based deployment can be matched with their competitors the I think it would be a far better solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP for almost two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
BIG-IP is stable and we plan to continue using it. We don't want to change because we're happy with what it's doing unless we switch over to the cloud. I think that cloud sizing is too heavy.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable product. There are three people who manage it, but it's applicable to the entire organization, so there are approximately 1,500 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
I think that technical support is pretty good. On a scale of one to ten, I can reasonably score them a nine.
How was the initial setup?
The implementation and deployment happened before I joined the company, although I have reviewed the procedure and did not find anything challenging when it came to installation. Once you understand how to work with the product, it is easy to manage the services.
What about the implementation team?
Our in-house team takes care of the maintenance. There are three people who manage it, and once every three months, we spend 30 or 40 minutes reading and clearing up the logs.
What was our ROI?
I don't think that this product really provides value for the money. However, what you get for the cost is satisfactory. It's not like I won the lottery. This is a solution that does what it's supposed to do at the price point.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
When we purchased additional licenses for our other locations, we received a discount of between 20% and 25%. My understanding is that they matched the competitor's price.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
If we move all of our on-premises systems onto the cloud, we will probably look for another solution. We may rely on the cloud provider for this.
What other advice do I have?
We have not felt the need to upgrade to the most recent version or do any updates on this product because we're pretty happy with what we have.
Overall, this is a good product and if one can afford it, then I would recommend it.
I would rate this solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-12-06T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
SaurabhPal from
Easy to use, simple to install, and offers good technical support
What is most valuable?
The load balancing is very good.
The tech support is helpful and knowledgeable.
Everything is okay within the solution. It works well.
The product offers pretty good security.
The solution is easy to install. It's a straightforward process.
The interface is excellent.
We've found the product overall to be simple and easy to use.
What needs improvement?
Currently, the product offers everything we need. I can't recall any features that may be lacking.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've only used the solution for one year. In comparison, I've used Radware for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We've had the solution installed for a year now and it is working as it should. There aren't bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. We find it stable and reliable. It's been a good experience so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The product can scale quite well. We haven't had any issues. If a company needs to expand it out, they should be able to do so without trouble.
Right now, I'm the only one at the office who uses the product.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've been in contact with technical support in the past. So far, I've been happy with their level of service. They have been very helpful and responsive overall. I don't have any complaints.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We also use Radware, which we've used a bit longer.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup isn't too complex. We can handle the process pretty well. It's straightforward. I consider it to be pretty easy. There's no difficulties during the instllation.
What other advice do I have?
I'm not sure of which version of the solution we're using right now. I have a few customers who are using it, and they may be using different solutions.
I'd recommend the solution. Our customers seem to be very happy with it.
Overall, I would rate the solution nine out of ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2020-12-17T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Satish Agarwal from
Is stable, scalable, and easy to install
What is most valuable?
As an IT developer, mostly I use load balancing for the traffic. Currently, it's distributing the load perfectly, as per my understanding of our requirements.
It's definitely scalable and is stable as well.
The initial setup is not complex, and the technical support is fine.
What needs improvement?
I'm not very sure about the security with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). We have our own private data center, but we are going to migrate our private data center into the Azure cloud environment. Security will then be a major concern when we migrate our own whole infrastructure to the public cloud.
So, I think they should improve in terms of security because nowadays, most organizations try to build their infrastructure on public cloud.
More documentation should be uploaded because very limited documentation is available on the internet. It will also help us to understand the system before purchasing the product.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's definitely scalable. It's a distributed architecture and micro services, so it's scalable. In fact, we are planning to increase usage and scale horizontally.
How are customer service and technical support?
I don't have any issues with respect to technical support; it has been fine.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex.
What other advice do I have?
If you have your own data center, then you can use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). I don't see any issues because they have been in the industry for a long time, and F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is very stable.
I would rate this solution at eight on a scale from one to ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-09-14T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1552263 from
Capable of handling huge workloads, good stability, and good scalability
What is our primary use case?
We use it for load balancing any kind of HTTP and HTTPS traffic coming from users or other systems.
What is most valuable?
One of the greatest things about F5 Load Balancer is that it provides additional capability for handling huge workloads and routing them to an SAP or non-SAP application. It is capable of supporting a large amount of user workload and application connectivity workload. This was the main reason why we chose F5.
What needs improvement?
It is a hardware load balancer, and its installation procedure is more complex than a software load balancer. There are pros and cons of using hardware load balancing. You have to have specific hardware deployed in your data center to activate this load balancer. They never came up with any software-based load balancing solution. It is all hardware-based.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. We have around 2,000 plus users.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is fine.
How was the initial setup?
It is a hardware load balancer, so its installation procedure is more complex than a software load balancer. You need specific hardware to install this load balancer.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We had evaluated a few SAP solutions, but we found F5 to be more suitable at that time.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. We have been using it for such a long time, and we are quite happy with it as an organization. It is awesome, and we plan to keep using it till we are on-prem. It has been good for our on-prem setup.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. I am quite satisfied with this solution.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-04-14T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1360833 from
Substantial features, great operating system, and easy to use
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution to offer load balancing to companies and especially for state and government company.
What is most valuable?
One of the best features of the solution is the operating system. Additionally, it is easy to use and has plenty of features.
What needs improvement?
The configuration is intricate and could be improved.
For a future release, I would like to see more features in the cloud.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of the solution is sometimes expensive.
What other advice do I have?
I rate F5 BIG-IP an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-03-14T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Orphé DJEDJERO from
Inadequate virtual machine support, but stable and secure
What is our primary use case?
Our engineers use various products from the F5 BIG-IP range when creating application solutions. Primarily, we make use of F5 BIG-IP's ASM (Application Security Manager) and WAF (Web Application Firewall). For most of our applications, we require that our servers, and server-related software, are hosted in virtual machine environments.
How has it helped my organization?
In my team, we work in a very agile environment and the solutions from BIG-IP, including BIG-IP WAF, suit us well when developing and serving our applications.
What is most valuable?
I am happy with most of the features made available to us through BIG-IP's software and I enjoy using the interfaces (dashboards, etc.).
What needs improvement?
There are some aspects of F5 BIG-IP that could be improved, the main one being virtual machine support. We have seen that even with the virtual editions, there are some things that we would like to do that are currently not possible with virtual machines.
We have seen some problems mainly with F5 BIG-IP ASM, and so I think the virtual editions of the ASM could be improved.
Another negative aspect is the cost, as it can be expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP for five years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
As far as I can tell, it's a stable and secure solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Although BIG-IP's solutions are scalable for most purposes, it's not always scalable for certain scenarios, in my opinion. From an API perspective, though, it is quite scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have used F5 BIG-IP's technical support and it is very good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy. Very, very easy. Especially for the web guys.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
F5 BIG-IP can be expensive, although there are trial versions available which are helpful to find out if the solution is right for your company.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have been considering using Nginx as an alternative or complementary solution to our application delivery and security needs, but we have not pursued this option further at this point.
For the most part, we are looking for a solution that has better support for virtual machines, and Nginx is one alternative we have looked at because of its good virtual machine support.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate F5 BIG-IP a five out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-01-01T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
PradeepKumar11 from
Good customization with knowledgeable and responsive support
What is our primary use case?
We are using this solution as a load balancer and reverse proxy.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is customization.
What needs improvement?
We are currently using BIG-IP and NetScaler and we wanted to have just one technology. We will be replacing F5 in March.
NetScaler is primarily used for Citrix purposes and BIG-IP is being used as a reverse proxy for our other applications. We would like to manage it easily with one technology.
I would like to see better integration. I can remember when we were implementing ADFS, we had some challenges.
There is not a lot of documentation available where you can refer to and configure any new technologies.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with F5 BIG-IP for approximately seven years but our organization has been using this solution for 13 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is stable. We have not experienced any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable solution and we have not had any limitations. We have approximately 3,000 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is very good in terms of their technical knowledge and assistance.
We have had contact with both F5 and Citrix.
F5 has a good technical team who can assist and understand the problem and respond quickly. However, Citrix has been a challenge for us.
How was the initial setup?
When we were setting up for Azure we had some challenges.
We have an internal team of two for maintenance and reporting.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.
I need to have a deeper understanding of F5 technology.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-12-31T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1010148 from
Effective policy and access manager, flexible, and simple setup
What is our primary use case?
We are using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for all the modules for DNS applications. It is a core product for us.
How has it helped my organization?
Since the COVID pandemic hit the whole company has been working remotely. It's improved the remote working by handling the security and the reachability of the company.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are DNS, APM, and ASM. Additionally, it is easy to use and you have a lot of flexibility to use the solution within a network.
What needs improvement?
The user interface could be improved in F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager.
There's can be some improvements done on the access policy manager(APM) such as supporting APIs and web services.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for approximately eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager to be stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of the solution is good.
We have approximately 20 engineers using the solution.
The solution is extensively being used and we plan to increase usage.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use many other solutions in our company.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
We did the implementation of the solution in-house.
We have one engineer that handles the support of the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager.
What was our ROI?
We have seen an ROI by using this solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are on an annual license to use the solution.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We have evaluated other solutions but we found the scalability and usability to be better in F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager.
What other advice do I have?
I strongly recommend this solution.
I rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a nine out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Pablo Vega from
We use it for the load balancing of our equipment, but the interface could use improvement
What 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 by
Erez Bar On from
Helps us recognize sessions from certain IPs that are authorized to manage our application
What 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 by
reviewer1527075 from
Secure, and has a lot of available documentation that makes it easy to install and deploy
What is our primary use case?
I am an integrator. I implement solutions for our customers.
It's straightforward deployment application delivery control.
Our customers have a lot of services that are public, in their internal network and external public network.
They use F5 BIG-IP to publish these services in a secure manner.
They use it for publish billing system services, and some uses for their internal services, such as the DNS active directory.
What is most valuable?
F5 BIG IP is a rock-solid solution. It's a very good solution.
I am very satisfied with the quality of this product.
There is a lot of documentation available.
I'm not very familiar with the services pattern. I am still exploring the features of this solution.
I am just working with a single application, which we need to publish. I don't know how many services they are using, and what kind of services they operate.
What needs improvement?
Technical support could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I am still a bit of a novice. I have only been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for a year.
We are currently deploying this on the service providers but dealing with the IT department for our customers.
It's an enterprise network that is servicing the internal IT traffic for our customers. This is traffic from the IT management systems, and billing systems.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
All systems have bugs, and F5 is not an exception.
In my experience, I didn't face any critical bugs that stopped the deployment.
I don't think that F5 is worse than other vendors in this perspective.
How are customer service and technical support?
I had some cases where I contacted technical support.
They have a good quality level of support and have helped us resolve our issues.
However, I have had a situation where I had a bad experience, but overall it's not the norm, it was just an exception.
I would compare technical support with Cisco, although I would say that Cisco is better.
Technical support could improve.
How was the initial setup?
The setup of the F5 BIG-IP system is a very straightforward process. It is very well documented and is described on the vendor information systems.
They provide a lot of information on their site and on the central portal. You can even find information on YouTube.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am not familiar with the price of this solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution to others. I am very satisfied with it.
I would rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Integrator
Date published: 2021-08-18T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
it_user109836 from
The interface is intuitive and well structured. It is not overloaded with too many gimmicks.
Improvements to My Organization
Central 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 Improvement
The 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 Issues
I have not yet encountered any stability issues.
Scalability Issues
I have not yet encountered any scalability issues.
Customer Service and Technical Support
Technical support is good. I have had nothing to complain about up until now.
Previous Solutions
I 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 Setup
Initial setup was straightforward. We were up and running in three hours.
Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing
Take a look at the modules that you are going to use. Look into the best bundles for them.
Other Solutions Considered
Before 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 Advice
Use 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 by
Eric Foote from
Load balancing brings high availability and a bigger ability to scale out
What 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 by
reviewer1573344 from
Stable, performs well, and the iRules functionality is very good
What is our primary use case?
I am not the F5 administrator so I don't use all of the features. I primarily perform daily operations such as checking statistics and deploying new virtual servers.
What is most valuable?
Our deployment is not very complicated, from my point of view. The HTTP and HTTPS load balancing mechanisms are the core functionality for me. I have done things like created new virtual servers, changed the load balancing, and looked at statistics, but I have not looked into the security features, API gateways, and other features because that is the responsibility of other departments. As a pure network engineer, I think the box is performing very well.
I've worked a little bit with iRules and it is amazing. As long as you know what you're doing, it does everything you want it to do.
What needs improvement?
Technical support is somewhat slow and could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with F5 BIG-IP for the past two years.
How are customer service and technical support?
My experience with technical support has come from two or three tickets that I have raised over the past two years. I would rate them a six or seven out of ten. I'm not sure if my colleagues have faced the same issues, but I have experienced delays in response, especially when I opened a case for iRules. It took them about a month and a half to get me to the point.
One of the reasons it took as long was because they considered this to be a problem for professional services, and not technical support. As such, it was not marked as urgent.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
F5 was the first load balancer that I worked on.
How was the initial setup?
The provisioning of the box from A to Z is of medium difficulty. It is not very complicated, nor very easy. I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of provisioning it for the first time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Compared to using open-source products, the prices are not cheap.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Although we are happy with F5, we are currently evaluating NGINX and Kemp LoadMaster because our F5 boxes are approaching end-of-life. We are running them as demos, conducting a PoC for each to test and see how they run in our environment. There are several things that I have yet to test with these other products.
My understanding is that the support packages and the boxes themselves are not very cheap.
If ultimately we find that the other solutions do not meet our requirements then we will be renewing our service with F5.
What other advice do I have?
To this point, whatever we have needed has been available out-of-the-box. In our environment, we have not experienced limitations.
In summary, we are happy with the product and for me, it's ideal for HTTP and HTTPS.
Performance-wise, stability-wise, and feature-wise, I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-05-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1586961 from
Good performance, easy to configure and simple to set up
What is our primary use case?
The product can be used for many applications including load balancing and GLB's overload balancing. It depends on the module. If there's a public APM you can use it for WAF and many other use-cases.
What is most valuable?
The performance of the product is great.
We enjoy its overall ease of use.
It's relatively easy to configure. There's a certain level of fine-grain configurations that you can perform.
The solution is very stable.
We've found the product to be quite scalable.
The initial setup is very straightforward.
What needs improvement?
The pricing could always be better. It's a bit expensive.
It would be ideal if they offered integration with NGINX. They purchased NGINX as well. Therefore, if it's got integration with NGINX, then you kind of have one single pane of a console for all the F5/NGINX portions of your work.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for six years. It's been a while.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. The performance is reliable. It doesn't crash or freeze. We don't find there are a lot of bugs or glitches.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is great. If a company needs to expand it, it can do so easily.
We have about 2,500 users on it currently.
We do plan to increase usage in the near future.
How are customer service and technical support?
We've used technical support in the past and have been satisfied with the level of attention we receive. They are helpful and responsive.
How was the initial setup?
The installation process is not overly complex or difficult. It's very straightforward and pretty simple.
The deployment is fast as well. It takes maybe an hour to an hour and a half to set everything up.
We have two people on staff that can handle deployment and maintenance. They are admins.
What about the implementation team?
I handled the installation myself. I did not need the assistance of any integrator or consultant. It was all handled in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution could work at lowering its prices a bit.
The licensing needs to be a bit more flexible.
We pay our licensing fees on a yearly basis.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did evaluate other solutions before choosing this product. However, it was a long time ago. I can't recall the products we looked at. One might have been Barracuda.
What other advice do I have?
We're a customer and a partner of F5.
The product is an on-premise virtual edition solution.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been mostly quite happy with it so far.
I'd recommend the solution to other users and organizations. Our experience has been a positive one.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2021-06-14T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1721355 from
Reliable, versatile, and essential for ensuring the availability and performance of our applications
What is our primary use case?
I use F5 BIG-IP LTM to balance the load across multiple servers hosting a website or web application, ensuring none get overwhelmed. It is handy for ensuring that services like my email server or database stay available and responsive, even if one server goes down. Plus, it is not just for web traffic; it can manage traffic for any TCP or UDP-based service, like FTP or SIP.
What is most valuable?
The value and impact of using F5 BIG-IP LTM for application delivery control in our organization are significant. It ensures the availability, stability, and reliability of our applications, ultimately contributing to smooth operations and enhanced user experience.
What needs improvement?
One area for improvement with F5 BIG-IP LTM could be its pricing, which some may find on the higher side. Lowering costs could make the solution more accessible to a wider range of organizations.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for about six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP LTM is a scalable solution, especially when deployed as a virtual machine. You can increase resources and licenses as needed, providing flexibility for growth. However, with physical appliances, scalability may be limited by hardware and license constraints.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is excellent.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up F5 BIG-IP LTM is generally straightforward. In a Windows environment, initial setup might take around thirty minutes, with additional time depending on specific needs and applications. The deployment process involves configuring nodes and tools for each server and application and setting up load balancing. Additional features like compression and caching profiles can be configured as needed. Once configured, it is typically self-loading, making ongoing management easier.
What was our ROI?
The initial investment in F5 BIG-IP LTM has been worthwhile for our organization.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing cost for F5 BIG-IP LTM is typically on a yearly basis, with options for one-year or three-year terms. It is quite expensive.
What other advice do I have?
In our organization, we use F5 BIG-IP LTM for local balancing and traffic management. It helps us evenly distribute incoming traffic across our servers, ensuring our applications like Tobe and DNS run smoothly. Plus, it handles traffic for other services, like STV, effectively managing our network flow.
F5 BIG-IP LTM has been crucial in enhancing application delivery and optimizing network traffic. Its robust features ensure that applications are delivered efficiently and reliably. From load balancing to SSL offloading, it handles tasks seamlessly, making applications run smoothly.
The features of F5 BIG-IP LTM that are most crucial for ensuring high availability, performance, and application optimization are its load balancing capabilities, SSL offloading, and traffic acceleration through compression.
The security capabilities of F5 BIG-IP LTM, such as SSL offloading and firewall services, are extremely valuable to us.
As a system administrator, I find the F5 BIG-IP LTM interface very user-friendly and intuitive. It simplifies complex tasks, making management easier. Compared to other vendors, it stands out for its ease of use. Plus, its analytics features streamline monitoring and decision-making.
My advice to new users is that if you are considering using F5 BIG-IP LTM for application delivery control and firewall capabilities, I would advise starting with a clear understanding of your organization's needs and objectives. Evaluate how F5 BIG-IP LTM aligns with your requirements, considering factors like scalability, performance, and security features. Additionally, explore alternative solutions like F5 ASM or FortiWeb to ensure you choose the best fit for your specific use case.
Overall, I would rate F5 BIG-IP LTM as a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Integrator
Date published: 2024-02-19T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer2336199 from
The product is secure, robust, and reliable, but it is very expensive
What is our primary use case?
We are using the solution for our internal and client purposes. We are a cloud service provider.
What is most valuable?
The solution provides good application delivery and network optimization features. We use all the features provided by the solution. It fulfills our requirements. All our infrastructure is set up with high availability through hardware and virtualization in all flavors and levels based on the customer requirements.
What needs improvement?
The pricing must be more flexible. We get billed for firewalls based on the usage. It will be helpful if the solution provides such flexibility.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for many years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The tool is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The tool is scalable. It meets the requirements.
How are customer service and support?
We have contacted the technical support team. The team is customer-friendly and knowledgeable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment takes just one minute because we use scripts. We need one technical person for the deployment.
What was our ROI?
The solution is robust and reliable. It provides us with security.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is expensive. We pay a yearly licensing fee.
What other advice do I have?
We recommend the product to others. It is scalable and reliable. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2024-02-01T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Joel Soares De Jesus from
Helps to balance traffic but needs improvement in pricing
What is our primary use case?
We use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager to balance traffic.
What needs improvement?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is expensive. Pricing needs to be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for five to eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is a scalable solution.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the product a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-09-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
it_user442209 from
The iRules feature helps routing meet our complex application’s architecture. It logs all of the details, which helps troubleshooting.
Valuable Features
iRules 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 Organization
My 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 Improvement
Active-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 Solution
I have used it for the past year.
Customer Service and Technical Support
All of the support I require is available on the internet.
Other Advice
The 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 by
GeorgesSamaha from
iRule performs some traffic control and management functions that are not supported out of the box.
Primary Use Case
We mainly use the following F5 modules
ISP environments:
* CGNAT
* DNS firewall
* Load balancer
* WAF to be sold as a service to their clients
Enterprise environments:
* Web application firewall
* Load balancer
* Application policy manager
* Fraud protection (Web and mobile)
* DDoS (on-premise, and cloud-based)
Valuable Features
iRule: 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 notifications
Stability Issues
I 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 Issues
We only encountered issues with small appliances, 2000s, when we needed to add more than two modules...
Customer Service and Technical Support
Technical support ( https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/f5-big-ip/by_topic/technical_support ) is great.
Previous Solutions
We 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 Setup
Initial setup is straightforward; easy deployment with lots of available online documentation.
Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing
F5 Prices are considered higher then competitive solutions, but performance & features are worth the extra money.
Other Solutions Considered
Over 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 investment
F5 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 Advice
F5 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 by
Luis Henriquez from
It integrates with AWS WAF, which makes it easy to deploy without changes to your infrastructure
What 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 by
Girish 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 by
Samar Choudhury from
With the roll back option, I can view the last things which happened on the device
What 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 by
it_user526731 from
Superior Alternative To DNS Round-Robin Load Balancing
What is most valuable?
* Great load balancing
* Solid OS
* Great support
How 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 by
it_user617790 from
Its advantages are load balancing and application visibility while security and reporting need improvement
What is most valuable?
* LTM for balancing
* ASM for WAF
How 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 by
Develope0fe0 from
It has helped our company with active pools and standby pools for high availability
What is our primary use case?
* Load balancing
* Certificate management
* Pooling of services
How 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 by
Director1e9d from
It is the centerpiece of a lot of the solutions that we build
What 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 by
Sathiya Shunmugasundaram from
It supports APIs and virtual additions for cloud and VMware
What 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 balancing
What 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 by
Solutiond87c from
It can determine if the system is going down, then route the traffic somewhere else
What 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 by
Richard Polyak from
Reduces maintenance downtime and has a strong user community
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use cases for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager are high availability for applications and SSL offload certificates.
How has it helped my organization?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager helps reduce our downtime for maintenance purposes. It also offers us ease of use for the deployment of certificates onto a central location, as opposed to individual nodes.
What is most valuable?
The feature I find the most valuable is the support infrastructure.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see tighter integration with all the product lines. A more hybrid approach would be beneficial for users.
It would also be great if the solution was less expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for more than 15 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I think it is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is very scalable. We have quite a few people using it within our organization, from admins to vice presidents. Maintenance is also very minimal.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, I used Cisco's and Nortel's versions.
How was the initial setup?
How straightforward the initial setup depends on the build. Overall, on a scale from one to five, with one being complex, and five being straightforward, I would give F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a four. It might take us two or three months to get everything up and built.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented in-house.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is an expensive product. However, the only additional cost we have with it is the yearly support cost.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did evaluate other options. Ultimately, we chose F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager because of the user community and the solution's ease of use.
What other advice do I have?
The advice I would give to others who are looking to implement F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is this: look at their user knowledge base first to see if the solution truly fits what you need.
On a scale of one to 10, I would give F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
UmeshKumar2 from
Excellent application security and data collection
What is our primary use case?
I mainly use LTM to protect applications.
What is most valuable?
LTM's most valuable features include application security, data collection, and parameter-level rules.
What needs improvement?
LTM would be improved with the inclusion of signature-based blocking. In the next release, LTM should include the ability to configure account details and access user logs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using LTM for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
LTM is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
LTM is scalable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward, so long as you have some understanding of the solution, and it should take around forty-five minutes. However, if you're unfamiliar with LTM, it will take longer.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend LTM to other users and give it a rating of nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-03-20T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
it_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 by
Guojun 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 by
Bachir Elsitt from
One box with many features including LTM, ASM, and GTM
What 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 by
Rehan Ghayyur Khan from
Hardware and software partitioning enable us to deploy multiple instances, two vCMPs
What 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 by
reviewer1505658 from
Highly scalable, exceedingly stable, and responsive technical support
What is our primary use case?
We use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) as a load balancing solution. We use many of the features associated with the solution, such as the Local Traffic Manager and Access Analytics that are associated with the SSL.
What is most valuable?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is very easy to use, from SSL Management to enabling, disabling loads, applications, systems, and monitoring. Overall the solution keeps our application functional from a client's perspective 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have rules that are set up to detect if any part of the application in one of the nodes is not functioning correctly, having a problem, or is experiencing any sort of error, it will automatically pull it out of the load balance bundle and alerts somebody to go take action and at the address. This means our clients are happy because they are not receiving strange errors because somebody's typed something somewhere incorrectly and we are happy because our uptime is reliable.
What needs improvement?
The solution could improve the documentation.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for approximately
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good. We have to power off a system to reboot it after firmware or other updates, but I have not had a problem with the stability of the units at all. We had a system cluster go down but that was a physical issue with the hard drive. They shipped us out a new one, plugged it back in, and it almost self-configures. We had to put some details in the hard drive, but it takes the configuration from the other units and runs well. We have had zero downtime over the last five years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is very scalable. We have recently expanded the cluster to five nodes and I am running in an active scenario. I did the upgrade live and it did not require any downtime.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good. I have not had any problem asking questions that a support person can not answer. Technical support is not engineering and that was something that I had to learn. If you have something that is already functional and you need to figure out why it stopped working, why it is now broken, or you did an upgrade and something is wrong, the technical support can help with that. I have called them a dozen times over the five years and they have had my issue resolved within approximately one hour.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up the solution on the systems is not difficult but enabling applications and configuration can be complex. The difficulty level can also depend on the environment, we have a more complex environment. You have to have some base knowledge of the solution for what you are doing before you can go do it. Configuring the solution is not something that a layperson is going to be able to do. You have to know what you are looking for before you will be able to find it.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to those wanting to implement this solution is they need to do their research ahead of time and know what problems you are trying to solve. In our case, our solutions engineer from F5 directly has been amazing. If you receive a good team in account management, they can point you in the right direction, and in a lot of cases, they can get you moving along. The support from him has been tremendous, it has been extremely valuable.
Our configuration is not simple. There is some custom code that is written in our system, but everything works as they say it should, it is a great solution.
I rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-10-13T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1633455 from
Good depiction of profiles, very easy to set up, and very stable
What is most valuable?
iRules are very valuable. In addition to that, the way profiles are depicted by the LTM is also very good.
What needs improvement?
A lot of functions that are attributed to iRules can actually be simple profile changes. iRules do have a certain performance impact. Therefore, instead of writing simple iRules, they can create certain profiles for classes that will perform the same function.
Its scalability and pricing can also be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for more than 12 years. We are currently using version 15.1.2. The latest one is 16.0, but we are still evaluating it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is not scalable. It is a licensed product. They are coming up with some scalable options, but for existing products, throughput is limited. Currently, if you have a 200 Mbps license, then it can go to a maximum of 200 Mbps. If you want it to go further than that, then you have to buy a new license.
How are customer service and technical support?
Their technical support is good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've been working for 12 years, and F5 was the first LTM product. In addition to F5, I've also worked on Citrix NetScaler, Load Balancer, Kemp, and Cisco ACE (no longer in service). I prefer F5 over all of them.
How was the initial setup?
Its initial setup is very easy. The biggest advantage that F5 has is that its initial setup is very simple.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is quite expensive as a product. Because it is very stable, it is also expensive.
What other advice do I have?
For mission-critical applications, you can trust F5 with any of your load balancing functions. However, if you have a UAT environment or a test setup, it won't be suitable because it is a pricey product. You can then go for an open-source product or any software with load balancers. VMware has recently come up with AVI load balancers.
I would rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-08-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1277325 from
A stable and easy-to-deploy solution with useful iRule feature for inspecting HTTP
What is our primary use case?
All of our web servers are load-balanced by F5.
What is most valuable?
The iRule feature is very useful for inspecting HTTP. Sometimes, we use it for modifying the headers of the HTTP.
What needs improvement?
F5 has another solution to load balance servers on the cloud, which they got after the purchase of NGINX. It is deployed as Kubernetes or something like that, but the problem now is that they have two solutions for two situations. They should make F5 deployable on the cloud.
Recently, we were investigating offloading SSL as version TLS 1.3. I am not sure if we were able to do that or not.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for more than 15 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
They have a host where you can increase the CPUs dedicated for load balancing. You can mount a cluster to escalate, but in order to escalate, you need to virtualize the solution. Otherwise, you need to change the device and load something bigger.
How are customer service and technical support?
I contacted them in the past. They provide good support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used a Cisco solution in the past, but they discontinued the solution or the hardware. F5 is much better.
How was the initial setup?
It is very easy. It depends a bit on what you want, but in one day or two days, you can have F5 load balancing on backend servers. It is very easy.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend others to choose a virtualized solution. I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-08-11T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Rakesh Joshi from
Easy to deploy, offers good stability and customer support
What is our primary use case?
We have deployed it for two customers. One uses the local LTM for load balancing the application. The other uses it as a raft and for load balancing.
What is most valuable?
F5 is easy to deploy, though more challenging than Kemp. Configuration takes time, but it's stable. It offers features Kemp doesn't provide. For example, there are predefined templates for handling Office 365. You can download them for automatic configuration.
What needs improvement?
In terms of pricing, it could be more competitive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with this solution for more than six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. All our customers are enterprise-level.
How are customer service and support?
I'm satisfied with the technical support from F5. The customer service and support are good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
It is easy to deploy. It took us a few hours to deploy because we had experience with the solution. A few hours will be sufficient if you have already studied how to deploy.
Configuration and deployment depend on the GUI. F5 has a different GUI, so it takes some time to get used to it. Kemp, on the other hand, has a single page where you can access everything.
With F5, you have to go to different sections for configuration. For example, to deploy a certificate, you import it, create a profile, go to the virtual service section, and link the profile. Kemp simplifies this process by allowing a static import of the certificate, making it more straightforward.
GUI plays a significant role in the ease of configuration.
What about the implementation team?
One person is enough for the deployment process.
Maintenance is not that difficult, but compared to Kemp, it is. Upgrading can be challenging; I faced issues with F5 upgrades, needed support assistance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing is quite high. We have taken it on a five-year basis. Not yearly.
And for support also, there is an extra cost.
What other advice do I have?
It depends on the customer's requirements. If both F5 and Kemp provide have the same features, I would suggest the customer go with Kemp because it's the cheapest solution. But if the customer requires something different supported by F5, then go with F5.
Overall, I would rate the product a nine out of ten; there is room for improvement in the pricing model.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-10-02T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Nt3210Sec8 from
Gives a "story" of our status, but we need details on how to reduce false positives
What 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 by
Mohamed Intissar from
Stable with a straightforward setup and comes with a load-balancing feature; its technical support is responsive
What is our primary use case?
We're offering services to citizens who access them over the internet, and we use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for load balancing between many physical servers or backend servers.
What is most valuable?
I like that F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is a product that comes with valuable features, but what stands out from all features is load balancing.
What needs improvement?
An area for improvement in F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is troubleshooting on the command line, which should be more graphical.
Another area for improvement is that it's a high-priced product.
What I want to see in the product's next release is more analytics.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've worked with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for about five years, and I'm still using the solution.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is stable, so I'm rating it nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is a scalable product, but my company has yet to try scaling it because there's no need.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is responsive. F5 has a beneficial knowledge base that allows my team to solve many problems by consulting the knowledge base.
I'd rate support eight out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) was straightforward, so I'd rate its setup as nine out of ten.
It took a few days to deploy F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) because the company had a lot of applications.
My company set up the hardware, configured the network parameters, then tested the product on one application before applying it to all applications.
What about the implementation team?
We used a consultant to deploy F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM).
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I found F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) an expensive product. The costs would depend on the appliance and infrastructure size. However, my company didn't have to pay extra to use additional features.
As F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is very pricey, I'd rate its pricing as two out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
I'm working with ADC products, particularly with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM).
A total of five people deployed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for my company. Three were internal, in particular, engineers, and two were consultants.
The solution requires maintenance when my company has a new application to publish and when, at times, there's a need to reset the backend configuration.
My company has many F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) users, with four people in charge of the administration and management of the product, though there's a plan to replace it because it will be EOL. The company is still prospecting and looking for alternatives, such as Barracuda or Fortinet.
I'd tell anyone looking to implement F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) that it's a good product, but its only problem is pricing.
My F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) rating is eight out of ten.
My company is a customer.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-01-01T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Oren Dror from
Stable with good security and reliability
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for security purposes.
What is most valuable?
The security on offer from the solution is very good.
The stability is excellent.
What needs improvement?
The pricing of the product is a bit too high. They should work to make it more affordable. It needs to be more cost-efficient.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable and the performance has been good.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've never used technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are when it comes to servicing their customers, having never used them personally.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I also have experience with Check Point.
How was the initial setup?
We did not install the solution ourselves. We used an integrator that handled the process and helped us set everything up.
What about the implementation team?
We used an integrator to assist with the installation. We were pleased with the results. There was nothing to complain about the results.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is pretty high. It's not the least expensive option.
That said, we're willing to pay for the premium security on offer.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a customer and an end-user.
We are using the 12th version of the solution.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been quite satisfied with the capabilities of the product.
I'd recommend the solution to other users and companies.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-08-07T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1897710 from
Industry leader; no one comes close in terms of specs
What is our primary use case?
In the last two years, the F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager implementations for a client had pointers, primarily ones pointing inwards to the onsite cloud-type systems, but they also did have pointers to some cloud-service-based instances as well. So it was actually doing a bit of hybrid.
How has it helped my organization?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager has improved the load balancing systems of organizations I've worked for in the past.
What is most valuable?
The F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager features I find the most valuable are the load balancing, the rest of the cell offload capabilities, and some of their security future capabilities.
What needs improvement?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is sometimes a bit cumbersome to deal with some builds, although that's gotten significantly better over the years.
There is also room for improvement in the integration between security set features that were available on their security tools to work more seamlessly with some of their load balancing functionality. It works well, but I would personally think they could improve it.
Simplifying the user interface would be nice to see as well.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager probably about a decade ago. I have been using it on and off ever since. The last experience I had working with them was more from a planning perspective. Previously, I had not only done planning, architecture, and design, but the actual implementation.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I've been very impressed. Once you get it working, it's been very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is scalable. That's one of the reasons I always went for it. Some of the clients I have worked with have been Fortune 100 companies with thousands and thousands of servers they needed front-ended.
Some of these sites had multiple thousands of web instances that needed to be load balanced. We were also doing both local and global load balancing. We'd use a global load balancer that would point to local load balancing that would port it out within a specific data center.
These clients had millions of end users. I believe that nearly all of those organizations ended up increasing their load balancing platform environment.
How are customer service and support?
The tech support we got from F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager directly was pretty good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager, I evaluated Citrix, Cisco, and several others. No other solution ever came up to quite the specs that we were looking for in terms of flexibility, capabilities, integrations, and ease of implementation. The big battle was whether or not to go with Cisco. The product is good and it integrates well with router platforms. However, with Cisco, you lose a slot in your chassis and it's kind of expensive to lose and the solution is not as good. It is not as flexible. Of course, Cisco lost the market in the end.
How was the initial setup?
The initial F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager setup is fairly complex. Granted, I wasn't working with discrete products. I haven't worked with any of the F5 discrete units. It's all been modular chassis-based for me. That gave me a lot more flexibility because I could put multiple instances; it's a much better bang for your buck and a lot more flexibility for large architectural implementation, which is really all I've ever done with it.
The instances I've built in the past had 25 to 30 segments, each having hundreds of servers. I have not done anything small-scale. One of our migration changes alone took 45 nights.
What about the implementation team?
The deployments were primarily done in-house. I would basically order and buy it. I would come up with the architectural designs for the network, work with some of the web server folks and some of the server people, and we would come up with a list of what was needed, which was usually thousands of things. Then, I would just develop an architectural model that would use the products.
What was our ROI?
In each instance that we deployed F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager from scratch, it was a return on investment that was positive in the eyes of the clients we were working with.
What other advice do I have?
The biggest advice I would give about F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is: to make sure you are aware of what your options are and what your own environment is. If you are a cloud-based environment, there is not much value in the local, load balancing. You would need to go with a cloud-based type load balancing capability, whether it is based on a fixed solution, like an F5, Avi, Citrix, or one of the cloud-based platforms. But, if you are still in an in-shop environment, there is much value to deploying it locally.
Overall, in terms of performance, on a scale of one to 10, with one being the worst and ten being the best, I would give F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-07-21T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer2129115 from
Beneficial application delivery controller, stable, but complex pricing model
What is our primary use case?
I used F5 BIG-IP LTM for the backend load balancing for the servers.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP LTM is brand image and recognition and the application delivery controller.
What needs improvement?
The pricing model has caused some frustration. My clients implemented the solution and later wanted to upgrade the features but the pricing structure was complicated. There are other solutions with better pricing models.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for approximately eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The TMOS of F5 BIG-IP LTM has a mid-layer that is an open source software and the user's management layer which can cause some issues for potential security risks. Other solutions have operating systems that are more secure, such as Cisco, Juniper, and Huawei.
People tend not to use F5 BIG-IP LTM because of this issue. They prefer to use more proprietary solutions, such as Apple solutions which typically can be more secure.
Overall the solution is stable as long as you have the updates and proper configurations.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
If there is a need to scale, there is a need to replace the hardware to allow for additional scalability.
Our department is between fifteen to twenty people as operators, but we are selling to half a million customers using the solution.
I rate the scalability of F5 BIG-IP LTM five out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
There is poor support in the region if there are issues. If someone does not pay the high price for premium support then the quality of the support is not ideal.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used many other solutions similar to F5 BIG-IP LTM. There are other solutions that provide the same functionality at a lower price.
How was the initial setup?
The documentation is detailed for the implementation and overall usage of the solution compared to other vendors. The knowledge of their solution and training is great.
What about the implementation team?
We use professional implementation services to deploy F5 BIG-IP LTM.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing model of F5 BIG-IP LTM is highly complex. The operation cost of the solution is high. The overall cost is high.
I rate the price of F5 BIG-IP LTM a one out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
We are slowly shifting to a new solution because of the lack of support in the region. Additionally, the new solution has similar delivery, a less expensive, and an uncomplicated licensing model.
Overall, F5 BIG-IP LTM is a quality solution. However, if you do not complete the frequent updates there can be security threats.
I rate F5 BIG-IP LTM a seven out of ten.
If companies have the money then this is a good solution. However, if they do not have the budget there are other solutions with similar features on the market.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-03-20T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
OMKaewsaenchai from
Better support than similar solutions in the same market
What is our primary use case?
We often use the Citrix ADC and F5 BIG-IP LTM together, because they have similar features. But, normally, we use Citrix solutions because we are Citrix providers in Bangkok, so we're not usually working with F5. However, there are some projects where we deploy F5 alongside Citrix or substitute it for the Citrix solution.
What needs improvement?
F5 could improve the rule-setting capabilities in the GUI, and they need to simplify web management. For example, the menus in the Citrix GUI are easier to navigate, with a clean structure and layout. It helps you navigate and find what you're looking for, but some of the menus in the F5 GUI are not very intuitive. You're doing the same task, but sometimes it's on the left, sometimes on the right, etc. It should all be on the same setup group menu or something like that.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with BIG-IP LTM for almost 10 years.
How are customer service and support?
I think F5's tech support may be better than Citrix's because they mainly focus on the ADC product, but Citrix support covers Hypervisor, XenMobile, FAS, and ADC. And from my experience, sometimes, we face some issues that Citrix cannot handle. In our first year, Citrix support was not very good, but in the second year, it was okay.
How was the initial setup?
Each product can be simple or complex to set up in its own way, but Citrix setup is more straightforward overall. Citrix doesn't have any restriction on modules or on features, so the features are exactly the same whether it's a small or large deployment. Only the performance is different, but everything else is the same.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I can't say much about the price because our sales department handles pricing. I'm a technical engineer, but I can say that all of these products are in the same price range.
What other advice do I have?
I rate F5 BIG-IP LTM nine out of 10. You can't go wrong with F5 because F5 and Citrix ADC are like the most advanced BMW in the market. So if what you need is deployment, localizing, high availability, and web balancing for your web server application server, both products can give you the same results. Both are good.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-10-24T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Walid Mouamar from
Network traffic management tool for faster applications; offers a good setup experience, stability, and scalability
What is our primary use case?
We use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for our applications. We have six applications and 16 servers currently. We make all our applications and utilize this tool. Some applications are published on LSM.
What needs improvement?
The price for F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is very high. This aspect could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for one year, within the last year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We find this tool stable. We are sensitive to changes, and for us, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is scalable.
How was the initial setup?
We had a good setup experience with this tool, but we had to raise a ticket with support for assistance.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager ourselves. We didn't use a consultant or integrator for implementation, but we contacted their support team.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is a high-priced tool. We pay for its license yearly.
What other advice do I have?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager has good performance.
Your success with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager will depend on how much you understand how the application is working.
Deployment of this tool took two hours.
We have 600 users of this tool, and currently, there's no requirement for increasing its usage.
We have one manager and two technical staff who takes care of the deployment and maintenance of this tool. They're building applications, and they're using this tool.
I'm recommending F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager to others who want to start using it.
On a scale from one to ten, with one being the worst and ten being the best, I'm rating F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) an eight.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-02-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1418577 from
Improves load balance and efficiency
What is our primary use case?
My primary use cases of this solution are as a big IP solution, a WAF solution, EPM, and reverse proxy.
How has it helped my organization?
This product has improved our load balance, especially when it comes to using the termination at the A5 level, making us more efficient.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are the WAF and the big IP.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for over eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
My impression is that it's scalable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, but it took some time to complete.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-01-05T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1739430 from
Great support, helpful documentation, and is user-friendly
What is our primary use case?
I basically work for the solutioning only, so I've been migrating the F5 from the existing chassis to the new chassis for the last three years. Before that, I was a part of operations so I was working to support any incidents on F5.
How has it helped my organization?
We have multiple solutions we can deploy through the F5.
The basic load balancing is acting as a round-robin. Other features we can use are based on the application team's requirements. F5 is not only basically giving solutions based on the network background, but it's also compatible based on the application level. Therefore, whenever the application team has a specific requirement, we can tweak it and we can provide the solution over the LTM.
What is most valuable?
For load balancing, for related solutioning, it is user-friendly. We have a good knowledge base over the F5 knowledge base.
The stability is good.
The solution is scalable.
Technical support and documentation are excellent.
What needs improvement?
For right now, I don't have anything I would suggest in terms of improvements.
I worked mainly on the CLI. Working on the CLI on the operations level or on the configuration level is sometimes a bit complex to understand. You have to have a good background in Linux so that you can perform the necessary solutioning or operations through the CLI. Whenever we want to investigate something we need to use the CLI, however, the CLI level troubleshooting and the solutioning, it is a little bit complicated. We have a limitation when it comes to the GUI. That said, I have found that we can do much better analysis with troubleshooting over the CLI.
Scaling up is complex.
It's expensive.
We need to have good security features available. It's something I still need to explore more, however.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started using the solution six years ago.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is quite stable. I never faced any issues. I would rate it ten out of ten for the LTM. It's a very stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For scaling, there has to be a lot of planning when we need to scale up F5. It is a bit complex.
We cannot easily scale up the LTM. We cannot put an additional box into the production without any downtime with the user experience. So adding the box or scaling up has to be done with proper planning.
We have an extensive network of users across Office 365, SharePoint, custom applications, Skype for Business, et cetera.
Some customers who have been using the solution for the last six years are wanting to migrate or wanting to upgrade their chassis to the newer version. It is typically if they have a station-hungry application to deploy, like Teams, where this is quite a useful product. With F5, the transition is quite smooth.
How are customer service and support?
I don't do any operation-related stuff. I don't deal with them too much.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We also use many Cisco products.
I directly got the opportunity to work on the F5. I didn't work with any other vendor.
How was the initial setup?
I worked on projects that were both difficult and simple.
I remember I was working closely with the application team where they wanted to migrate their platform with zero downtime. They wanted to migrate the user data from one SharePoint to another SharePoint without any downtime. We used a specific i-rule. That i-rule checks the URLs and then it checks the decision as to whether to redirect the traffic to the specific node, which is the existing node, or in the new data center.
This was a kind of complex project. We had to troubleshoot when the users were getting the "page cannot be displayed" message. It was pointed out that it was an F5-related issue, however, later, when we check the per page of the node, which is behind EVIP, we tried to check the meeting URL on each node and we found that a specific node was giving the page cannot be displayed or 404 error. We learned we had to be careful about the migration of the application using the URL with zero downtime.
The main complexity was felt by the application team requirement. They wanted it in such a way that the user should not face any issues. The SharePoint migration should be from the existing infra to the new infra and should be transferred to the user. Due to that complexity, we have to work on the i-rule mainly, which was defining i-rules or providing solutions based on the URL part and it was a bit complex to do everything successfully.
That said, on a normal application, a standard application, we have a good i-rule available over the F5, which we can use. It is only complex for custom applications.
For the standard application, it was very quick to deploy. We can deploy it in a day. If it is a complex i-rule with multiple URLs to be analyzed, or which checks the background, then it has to be tested well before being put in production. It takes longer. It takes time, based on the scope of the project and where you need to deploy.
How much help you need with maintenance depends on the scope of this project. If there is 24/7 support required in the operation, so based on the, let's say, specific DC, if we have one cluster for a specific application and additional, or two pairs of clusters or three pairs of clusters, I would say you would need three full-timers required in a day for operation-related topics.
For solutioning, it typically depends on the scope of work, however, I would say a single full-timer can manage the solutioning.
What about the implementation team?
For complex issues we generally take a consultation from the F5, however, for the standard or medium standard application, we do it on our own. For the SharePoint migration using the complex i-rule, we took a consultation from F5.
What was our ROI?
We have seen an ROI. I would rate it five out of five in terms of the returns we've seen.
If you have LTM specifically, you can deploy multiple applications using one cluster and it will definitely be beneficial.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'm not aware of the licensing costs. My understanding is that it is expensive. I'd rate it a four out of five in terms of the rather expensive cost.
We do pay for extra support.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I'm still one step behind the pre-sales in my current organization. I don't deal with any evaluations of other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I'm a customer and end-user.
Currently, it's on-premises, however, we are targeting the cloud.
Sometimes we have to definitely look for external support, which is very good. They provide good support and good documentation. Once you have their help, with a good document, you can get some idea of what to do and how you can further customize the solution for other needs. For the very complex options, it's a good idea to have F5 support included at the beginning just to not waste time.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partners
Date published: 2022-07-12T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1589751 from
Stable solution but could improve its integration in future releases
What is our primary use case?
In terms of our primary use cases - all our web services, our main web portals, and our TV service sit behind the F5, so any customer would have to traverse our F5 for the services at the back of it.
It serves our backend and front end services.
What needs improvement?
In terms of what could be improved, I would expect more integration with different platforms and more integration with the backend systems.
Additionally, in the next release, I would like a more secure version.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for about five years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of stability, it is stable, but we have a regular update program because of the security vulnerabilities, meaning bugs. So it is an ongoing thing maintaining them.
It's a bit of an overhead at the moment.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of how many users we have using it, for the end user, all our customers go through the F5, so they are using it in terms of service. In terms of our engineers and how many people use it, that depends. If you're deploying it or you're in operations, like I am, there are hundreds of engineers and internal users.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have weekly calls with F5 directly. We used to go through a third party, but now we go directly to F5 for our support.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
When you buy it you have a license bundle which I think you have to renew every year or every couple of years.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to ten, I would probably give F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a six.
I would give it a warm recommendation, I would not give it a glowing recommendation. I'd give it a warm, "Tread with caution."
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-09-01T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Michael-Yuen from
Reliable and good support, but ease of use could improve
What is our primary use case?
I am using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for load balancing. For example, I create the virtual server, and in there we have a pool and member server. This is used for simple load balancing.
We are using the on-premise and cloud versions of the solution.
What needs improvement?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager could improve by having an FNI feature for a single source to multi-domain load balancing.
When I was using the solution I was using the basic functions and I found it difficult to handle some of the more advanced features. I needed assistance from my IT department or the vendors themself. There should be more workshops are places to gain knowledge on how to use the solution. You need specific skill sets to use it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager(LTM) within the past 12 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is a stable and reliable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Our whole IT department is using the solution with some application teams. We have approximately 50 people using the solution in the IT department.
How are customer service and support?
When there is an issue it is first looked at by our internal team rather a ticket being opened directly with the vendor. I open the tickets to our internal team and if they cannot solve the issue, they will escalate to the vendor. The technical support from F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is good.
What about the implementation team?
We did not do the implementation ourselves.
What other advice do I have?
It is important to know how the solution works. For example, how to set up the interface, routing, pools, and the implementation steps. After the basic configurations, you will understand you may need or want to try to learn more of the features, such as the layers of the SNI. It is ideal to start with the very basic implementation first. We have been doing the day-to-day operation.
When it comes to troubleshooting, it is important to know how to isolate the problem, analyze it, and be fast to solve them when it appears.
I rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a six out of ten.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-03-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Kay Jackels from
Makes the publishing of applications to the Internet safer
What 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
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1788060 from
It's like a Swiss Army knife, and you can scale it horizontally or vertically as much as you want
What is our primary use case?
BIG-IP has multiple uses, including VPN, application firewall, and load balancing.
What is most valuable?
BIG-IP can do anything. It's like a Swiss Army knife.
What needs improvement?
BIG-IP LTM is taking a long time to mature in cloud environments. They plan to improve cloud integration in the next version, but it isn't out yet. It's essential because more companies are moving to the cloud these days and using things like Kubernetes or microservices. F5 needs to improve in that direction, and they are.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used BIG-IP for about 15 years
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
BIG-IP LTM's hardware is stable, and the operating system is great.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
BIG-IP can scale horizontally or vertically because it's a blade system. If you need more hardware on the same appliance, you can put blades on it. They are a bit expensive but work fine. You can create a cluster if you want to scale horizontally and put any hardware you need on it. You can scale as much as you want.
How are customer service and support?
I rate F5 support seven out of 10. The response time is okay, but sometimes you have to explain your issue to multiple support engineers before it gets resolved. It's a common issue with most tech support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
Setting up BIG-IP LTM was complicated in the beginning, but it has gotten easier over time. The deployment time varies depending on your environment. You have to connect and activate the license, but the operating system and modules are pre-installed. The basic setup takes only an hour, but you might need to do some additional configuration.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
BIG-IP LTM is somewhat pricey for a small company with a limited budget.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Date published: 2023-04-05T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
it_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 by
NetworkE0d45 from
Versatile, easy to use; the iRule feature is key for me
How 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 by
ipmplspr538920 from
Along with load balancing, we perform a lot of packet inspections, URL rewriting, and SSL interceptions via iRule
What 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 by
Thomas 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
* Simplicity
I 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 by
it_user223881 from
The Local Traffic Manager provides the means and the intelligence to load balance based on advanced logic
Primary Use Case
Primary 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 Organization
It 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 Features
The 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 Improvement
I 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 Solution
Three to five years.
Stability Issues
Stability has never been an issue with F5 BIG-IP. The product is geared predominantly at providing stability and resiliency across your infrastructure.
Scalability Issues
No 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 Support
I 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 Solutions
Previously, 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 Licensing
The 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 Considered
We 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 Advice
I 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 by
it_user171753 from
We use it’s LTM feature for many applications, especially HTTP and HTTPS. A bug in the firmware caused hardware failures.
Valuable Features
LTM 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 Improvement
There is room for improvement with their firmware quality control. A bug in the firmware caused hardware failures.
Use of Solution
I have been using it for one year.
Stability Issues
Unfortunately, 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 Support
F5 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 Advice
I 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 by
KushtrimDautaga from
We Can Load Balance Servers Requests
What 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 by
Aliaksei Shyshkou from
Local Traffic Manager load balances our web applications, does SSL decryption, and application adjusting
What 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 by
reviewer1429230 from
Provides excellent load balancing and a simple deployment
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution as a proxy to our websites, load balancing all our servers as clients come onto our website and use our services. Our website provides around 15 different services. We are customers of F5 and I'm a solutions architect for telecom and network infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
The load balancing aspect is valuable to us.
What needs improvement?
We use a limited amount of features so the biggest issue for us is the price. For what we're using, it's an expensive solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using this solution for 12 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is very stable and scales easily. Our networking team deals with the maintenance.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is pretty straightforward. We had external help for implementation and I believe deployment took about two days.
What other advice do I have?
I rate this solution a nine out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-02-15T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer894507 from
A stable solution with useful web application firewall and load balancing features
What is our primary use case?
We are using it for web application firewall and load balancing features. We have its latest version.
What is most valuable?
It is stable.
What needs improvement?
Its scalability and deployment should be better. It should be more scalable, and it should be easier to deploy.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for a couple of months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is not scalable. We have about 2,000 users in our organization.
How are customer service and technical support?
I don't have any experience with their technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We didn't use any other product.
How was the initial setup?
It is neither easy nor complex. It needs experience. Fortinet is easier to deploy than this.
What about the implementation team?
I did it myself. We have an IT team of 60 people.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend this solution. We plan to keep using it.
I would rate F5 BIG-IP an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2021-03-31T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1480176 from
User-friendly, can be operated from a single console, and the performance is good
What is our primary use case?
We are a solution provider and we work with a lot of products from F5.
In our internal network, we use F5 BIG-IP. We also have a few implementations with this product, including some that are integrated with other solutions such as IBM Guardium.
One of the great use cases is capturing an application user through F5 and then pushing it to Guardium. This is very useful for our customers because they can then connect to the database with a real application user, which is something that is very hard to achieve through other vendors.
What is most valuable?
The main reason that we suggest this product to our clients is the great integration with other security tools, such as IBM Guardium.
This product is very user-friendly, which is good for customers who have an implementation done by a partner but want to handle administration in-house.
All of the functionality can be achieved from one console.
Even on Hyper-V or a VMware appliance, the performance is very good when you use it as a proxy or a web application.
The documentation is very good.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with F5 BIG-IP for between three and four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
From our perspective, it is scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have all of the help and support that we need from the F5 office in this region.
Technical support from F5 is very good. As a partner, I have had a very good experience with them. They have shared knowledge with us and support us in our projects, which is definitely a big plus.
How was the initial setup?
It is very easy to install, especially when doing so to VMware. For example, we have spent almost a day installing security tools by other vendors. For BIG-IP, we need only two or three hours to complete it.
For the complete deployment that includes implementation and configuration, it takes between 10 and 15 days. The length of time depends on the client's goals and requirements. For example, some just want to use it as a web application firewall, whereas others want to use more functionality. The more functionality there is, the more time it takes to complete.
What about the implementation team?
Our in-house team implements and deploys this solution to our customers.
You need two or three people, including a security manager who will configure all of the rules and policies.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price should be reduced because it is expensive when compared to the competition. Alternatively, bundled packages should be offered. This is an issue that shows up for most of our customers.
What other advice do I have?
In summary, this is a very good product and we are actively suggesting it to our customers. It is something that should be more present in our market, especially because of the functionality that it provides.
In the end, we get very good results from BIG-IP.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Girisha R from
A stable solution for application delivery control
What 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 by
Technicab017 from
Improves our program performance and security
What 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 by
John Bayangos from
Reliable with good support and useful load-balancing features
What is our primary use case?
We usually use the product for load balancing, as a web server, and for web traffic.
How has it helped my organization?
We're hosting a website for our company, and the solution has helped a lot with load balancing.
What is most valuable?
The load-balancing features are great. You can do several different types, depending on the application.
The solution offers good automation.
It's stable and reliable.
The solution can scale.
The setup is pretty easy.
They offer good technical support.
What needs improvement?
The GUI needs improvement. They need some sort of help section in the GUI, like descriptions of certain features. There are a lot of features, and it is hard to remember what does what. Having some sort of prompt or pop-up in the GUI would help a lot.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for around six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability are great. I'd rate stability nine out of ten. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good. I'd rate it nine out of ten. It's easy to expand.
We have two or three users directly dealing with the solution.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support has been helpful and responsive so far.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
While I was involved in the on-premises deployment. For the cloud, I didn't have to do much. It's a pretty straightforward setup. The only complex part is building the HA since it's linked to following a certain procedure. In that case, the ease of implementation depends on the experience of the one who's going to deploy it.
Two people should be able to handle deployment.
What was our ROI?
We have witnessed a return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I'd rate the pricing three out of ten. It is quite expensive to scale up.
What other advice do I have?
The product can be deployed on-premises and on the cloud.
If a customer really wants a robust and stable load-balancing appliance, they should go for LTM.
I'd rate it eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-01-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Saneesh Pv from
The solution stands out from its competitors owing to the flexibility it offers to its users with the help of iRule
What is our primary use case?
I use the tool as a load balancer to distribute user traffic across different servers. It is used for scalability purposes. Depending on the amount of traffic that comes in, I can send that traffic to different servers and load-balance it. Also, the web application firewall protects our servers and applications from cyberattacks.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is that it allows you to manipulate things. Now, manipulation here is in the sense that you can do whatever you want to do in the solution using something called iRule, which is a programming interface for F5. So, this is something I find to be extremely useful when compared to other vendors.
What needs improvement?
Based on my experience using F5 and by only taking into consideration the last seven years, I have found that the reporting mechanism is bad. F5 seems to prioritize its core functions and has not placed a strong emphasis on logging and reporting. I say that the reporting is bad based on my experiences and after considering the requests from customers over the past 11 years. They often ask for specific reports and information that are not available from the devices.
I want the response from tech support to get faster.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have worked for almost 11 years with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution's stability is pretty good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I handle almost a hundred-plus customers who are using this solution. The solution comes in different form factors. The high-end models are scalable owing to their ability to cater to certain requirements. So, since there are different models available, the solution is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I am not happy with the tech support. If I compare it with Fortinet, it is not great. Though I am able to connect over a call with the tech team, it is very difficult to get the right engineer at the right time. When it comes to Fortinet, you get the right person to help you at the right time.
How was the initial setup?
While the initial setup of the tool is easy and straightforward, the complexity of onboarding each application can vary and depends on the specific application being used. Also, since I have been working on F5 for about 11 years, it may take me a day to deploy the whole setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I am not aware of the exact cost of the product. However, it is expensive. The pricing can either be on a yearly or monthly subscription basis, and this choice is left to the customer's discretion. The product also includes a basic hardware support guarantee and subscription-based services, which can affect the overall cost.
What other advice do I have?
People need to have a basic understanding of HTTP and SSF. Additionally, this device is not solely a networking device but rather a solution that operates as an application device. Therefore, knowledge of applications, programming, and related fields is essential. I just mean to say that the people who are planning to use this solution should not only have a background in networking but also should possess some application programming knowledge. I rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-02-13T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
UzochikwaEnunwa from
Improves the resilience and quality of the application but needs more data granularity
What is our primary use case?
We use it for server management and application traffic, that is, to load balance between traffic for applications coming from their service. Users coming in are then able to have their traffic go to the service that has the suitable resources or adequate resources.
What is most valuable?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) improves the resilience and quality of the application itself, the speed and the user experience for the application. The data that the users need from the application is actually acquired faster. So, it provides faster data acquisition.
It also provides lower latency.
What needs improvement?
It would be good to have better traffic and better data. It would be nice to have more granularity to see packets in terms of the header details, the analytics, etc. It would be nice if that was also part of it and to have analytics added to the traffic.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using it for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is pretty stable. It's one of the most stable products that I know, when it comes to load balancing and traffic.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. We have thousands of users.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is top notch.
How was the initial setup?
It is pretty easy to set up.
Because there were other parties involved, the deployment took us about a week. Normally, it takes a couple of hours.
What about the implementation team?
We did it in-house.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise you to go for it because it's one of the top three solutions in my opinion. I would rate it at seven on a scale from one to ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-06-10T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Nirav_Shah from
Capability is good but integration and scalability need improvement
What is our primary use case?
We use it to publicly deliver applications.
What is most valuable?
The capability is at a seven or eight out of ten.
What needs improvement?
In terms of native integrations, there is a lot of instability. Also, integration is not robust with F5.
We need a very large team to manage the solution. Had it been cloud native, it would have been very seamless, but because it's not cloud native, it does not integrate really well.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using it for a few years.
It's a cloud solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
From a scalability point of view, this solution is not really up to the mark. The on-demand requirements or on-demand scalability options are not good.
We have close to 5,000 applications hosted on F5 that are delivered.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is very poor. They do not deliver on their SLAs, and even when we escalate the issue, we do not get a good response in 24 hours.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. For a very basic, standard F5 setup, the best practices based deployment will work fine. However, for very large scale deployment models, the recommendations that come in from F5 may not really meet your requirements.
For a typical setup, you would like to mimic how it's been set up on-premises, but this is not the way you would set it up on the cloud. You will end up hitting limitations on the cloud, and you would have to rearchitect your overall design or configurations when you deploy it. As a result, the setup for the hybrid model is not straightforward.
What other advice do I have?
We strongly recommend not to go with F5 when internal teams or verticals want to mimic the same architecture.
In terms of the capability, I would rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) at seven or eight, on a scale from one to ten, and in terms of scalability at four or five. Overall, I would rate it at six.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-05-29T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Abduh Rumfot from
Useful application policy and rule making, highly scalable, and reliable
What is our primary use case?
We are using F5 BIG-IP LTM for our application which is a reverse proxy. We use it for availability, and to process the application because it is used in the financial industry.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP LTM is it helps our delivery team to make policies and rules for application.
What needs improvement?
The user interface of F5 BIG-IP LTM is old and could improve.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for approximately five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the stability of F5 BIG-IP LTM a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of F5 BIG-IP LTM is good.
This solution is best suited for medium to large-sized businesses in the finance and telecommunications industries.
I rate the scalability of F5 BIG-IP LTM a nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The support from F5 BIG-IP LTM is not good.
I rate the support from F5 BIG-IP LTM a five out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of F5 BIG-IP LTM is simple because our project is not complicated. The implementation took approximately three days.
I rate the initial setup of F5 BIG-IP LTM a seven out of ten.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price of F5 BIG-IP LTM could improve.
I rate the scalability of F5 BIG-IP LTM a ten out of ten.
What other advice do I have?
This is a good solution, but it is expensive. I would recommend this solution to others.
I rate F5 BIG-IP LTM an eight out of ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2023-01-31T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Mohammed Abdul Rahman from
Reliable and has good customization features
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case of this solution is for reverse processing applications and services.
How has it helped my organization?
Our organization greatly benefited from having a reliable and always-accessible F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM). The customization options have especially come in handy, and we can modify, insert or remove the header.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is iRules.
What needs improvement?
The area for improvement would be analytical capabilities and configurations in LTM. For example, I want to know the end-to-end processes. If the traffic comes to the virtual servers without taking a wide shot, I would like to see the reason for the latency. The analytics should provide insight into latency across various traffic routes and virtual servers. The additional features in the next release should be real-time analytical capabilities.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used F5 BIG-IP LTM for 12 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable product. There have not been any issues with stability, and I would rate the stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In terms of scalability, there are some limitations on the architecture level in F5. For example, F5 has a limit of eight Virtual Control Planes (VCPs) per hardware configuration. It means expansion and scalability require additional hardware resources. I would rate scalability a five out of five. Only I am involved with this solution at my company.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support team are experts, but I have faced difficulty with response time and resolution time. They need to have more workforce to deal with clients’ resolutions.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have been using the F5 BIG-IP LTM for 12 years and have not felt compelled to look at alternatives.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of F5 BIG-IP LTM is straightforward. It is user-friendly and takes around 30 minutes to set up. A beginner could set it up. You just follow the documentation.
What about the implementation team?
The product is deployed on-premise.
What was our ROI?
I definitely have seen an increase in ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I use a yearly subscription, which is the most expensive one now compared to its competitors.
I would rate the pricing a one out of ten. It is the most expensive solution out there.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I also evaluated Cisco and Citrix. I evaluated the F5 based on its stability, customization and reliability. No other product can match it.
What other advice do I have?
Users should keep their individual needs in mind before deciding whether to opt for this solution, considering the applications that need delivering, if load balancing is necessary or if an ADC is required. Such questions can help users make the right choice.
I would rate F5 LTM a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: PeerSpot has made contact with the reviewer to validate that the person is a real user. The information in the posting is based upon a vendor-supplied case study, but the reviewer has confirmed the content's accuracy.partner
Date published: 2023-02-09T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Kuber Shukla from
Good load balancing and web proxy features with good attack prevention
What is our primary use case?
We use this product to hide true identity of our web servers from external users while balancing the loads of those external users.
For load balancing, we have various load balancing method. We can define these methods at the node or pool level.
We are retail users and have lot of websites for online businesses to prevent attacks. On those sites, there is a WAF module that we also use, which prevents attacks on it.
It acts as a reverse proxy for our web servers, and we can use certificate to protect from attackers and send encrypted traffic to F5 which then decrypt and passes to the internal server after encrypting again using a server-side certificate or sending in plain form.
How has it helped my organization?
It has helped a lot to protect our organization from external attacks, especially XSS or XSRF types of attacks.
It serves as a reverse proxy for our web servers which takes the request from the internet users on F5 public-facing IP using an encrypted connection and then it decrypts the packet using a client-side certificate. We use server-side certificates to encrypt the traffic and send it to the server. Internet users never know what the real server IP is. It does NATing to hide the identity and it has an ASM module to protect it from web attacks.
What is most valuable?
There are a lot of good things this solution has, including:
The LTM module helps to load balance the traffic among the internal web server in our case using round robin and least connection method.
The ASM module prevents web attacks and protects our web servers.
The irule feature is used to write these irules to redirect the traffic or sometimes prevent automated attacks such as through BOTs where the distinction between real and fake users becomes increasingly tricky.
Its virtual servers have the option to configure other things to increase the speed of serving requests like the use of a persistence profile.
What needs improvement?
The major drawback is it has lot of options nested inside, and each option has a lot of options. I'm not sure who might be using all those options or even some (limited) good options. They should pare everything down.
It requires a particular skill or training before being able to manage it. Creating virtual servers, managing pools, and nodes until it is working on WAF side of it becomes difficult while writing the irules.
Another drawback is we are using a physical appliance. It becomes very slow and unresponsive. Even logs cannot load on the box to troubleshoot. It overwrites the logs. They need to do something in log storage locally on this box in the next release.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-08-28T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Inderjeet Singh from
Enables us to catch attacks before they hit us
What 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 by
AhmedYoussef1 from
Simple to implement, good support, and scalable
What is our primary use case?
F5 BIG-IP LTM is used for delivering applications and protecting the application from web attacks.
What needs improvement?
F5 BIG-IP LTM can improve on the SSL loading which includes the authentication of certificates. Although, most of these issues have been solved there are still some issue that persists.
In a feature release, it would be helpful to have real-time packet features in the GUI.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for approximately two years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have clients that have approximately 5,000 users using the solutions and others with 40,000 users.
When we increase the services we have to then increase the usage of the solution, we put more virtual F5 devices in the cloud.
How are customer service and support?
The support from F5 BIG-IP LTM is good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of F5 BIG-IP LTM is straightforward. The full deployment took approximately two to three days.
What about the implementation team?
I used one person for the deployment of F5 BIG-IP LTM because it is easy to do.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
There are a few licensing options available for F5 BIG-IP LTM. You can have a perpetual license which is a lifetime license. You then only need to renew the support, if you choose to open a ticket with the support.
The second option is a subscription model on the cloud. When I have a project that will only one year. I purchase a subscription for one year only. It would work for the whole year and after we can shut it down because there is no need for it.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is to have a good staff who understand the technology. If someone understands the technology, that will make life easy for them or their organization. I cannot say that technology is difficult, but technology is very critical when you put it in your environment. Having good staff who can manage that solution makes life a lot easier.
I rate F5 BIG-IP LTM a nine out of ten.
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2022-09-10T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1573344 from
Reasonably priced, performs well, with responsive, and helpful technical support
What is our primary use case?
For everything, F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is used. We used it for our exchange server before migrating to Teams, and then for Skype. It currently operates several large broadcasting and streaming services.
How has it helped my organization?
Our jump server is quite large. To keep the high number of connections, we had to deploy it behind the F5. That saved us a lot of time and achieved our goal of having a stable jump server. When you put it behind an F5, you divide the connections between a couple of nodes, which was something we didn't have before.
What is most valuable?
We are using almost all of the features. What we like best about this solution is its stability. It is extremely stable.
What needs improvement?
So far, everything appears to be fine. I wouldn't be the best person to comment on something like APIs because I haven't really dug into a lot of APIs. However, I believe F5 falls a little short when it comes to APIs. But I'm not certain.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been running F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for nine years.
We haven't done an upgrade in three years.
It is being used internally. We have a large number of internal services. We kept a few services, say two or three services that are being published, but it's primarily intended for our internal services.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is very stable.
We are a broadcast company. We have streaming services running behind this box. This streaming service has been released, with 19 to 20 streams. We haven't received any complaints about these streams since the streaming service was deployed behind F5. Despite the fact that these streams consume a lot of bandwidth and have millions of sessions. We haven't received many complaints about them.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It reaches a point where scaling is no longer possible. Assume you have two boxes, and you want to expand. You can divide it into what is known as vices or virtual systems, but then you're stuck. This is where, NGINX comes in, in a better way, where you can simply scale up by adding more VMs or appliances without running into problems because you have an NGINX controller that controls everything.
The users are mostly administrators and network engineers like myself. The number of end users is somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000.
How are customer service and support?
They were extremely helpful in both SLA and non-SLA cases. An SLA case is one in which assistance is required, and the assistance must provide you with a solution.
Technical support was also helpful in non-SLA cases where I requested assistance, as well as in sharing guides and documents.
I would rate the technical support a four and a half out of five.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We are using a combination of F5 and NGINX.
I am still relatively new to NGINX. We recently implemented it in our environment.
We are interested in NGINX. We would like to explore the NGINX platform. It has multiple platforms such as security, APIs, and application gateways.
We are looking into it, as well as the LTM module of it.
We are also interested in learning more about Kemp LoadMaster.
How was the initial setup?
Nothing goes as smoothly as you might expect, but it wasn't all that difficult. We had a few issues at first, but it's been running very smoothly since then.
I wasn't present when F5 was installed. It has been nine years. However, I have completed a few deployments in one of the branch offices, and to be honest, it wasn't all that complicated.
Because it was a new deployment, it didn't require any strategy, migration plan, or anything else.
What about the implementation team?
We do not use third-party vendors. Everything is completed in-house.
This solution is managed by two network engineers, myself, and a colleague.
What was our ROI?
I would rate the ROI a three out of five.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would rate the pricing a three out of five.
There are no additional fees to the standard licensing fee; everything is paid once.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I was comparing products like Apache Web Server, F5 LTM, Fortinet FortiADC, Kemp LoadMaster, and NGINX Plus.
What other advice do I have?
It depends on the use case. However, if you are not interested in the application side, F5 would be useful. If you just want a load balancer that balances multiple servers, that's all you need. Not basic, but basic to intermediate material. F5 takes first place with no one even close to matching it. However, if you want to go deeper and more advanced, you should look into NGINX or any other vendor that has more options or more features.
As a network engineer, I am totally happy with the product.
I would rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-06-27T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Robert 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 by
Network8776 from
Alert notification window notifies of any issues and will then resolve them
What 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 by
JackChen3 from
Global DNS, Link Controller, and Server Load Balancer provide our company service with high availability. Internet and cloud support could be improved
What 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 by
ShivSingh from
It renders policy-based security management but requires improvement in policy-based control
What 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 by
Joshua Cruz from
You can manipulate the iRules, so you can send traffic to different avenues
What 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 by
Kok KeongLow from
Flexible solution that allows seamless addition of servers
What is our primary use case?
BIG-IP LTM is mainly used to load balance applications.
What is most valuable?
BIG-IP LTM's most valuable feature is that it allows you to seamlessly add more servers without impacting your application's configuration. It's also very flexible because you can use iRules to manipulate the traffic.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using BIG-IP LTM for over ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
BIG-IP LTM is quite stable - sometimes there are security vulnerabilities, but they inform us when a patch is needed.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
BIG-IP LTM is scalable - once F5 is installed, you can keep adding servers behind it.
How are customer service and support?
BIG-IP LTM's technical support is good - once you log a case with them, the support is quite prompt and responsive.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup can be complex - it's quite flexible in terms of configuration, but the person configuring it needs to understand the application side, the network side, and the server. The speed of deployment depends on the application requirement and the application deployment cycle.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
BIG-IP LTM is considered a premium product, so it's quite expensive and isn't affordable for all customers. F5's licensing is based on modules, so there are separate charges depending on which features you want.
What other advice do I have?
Before implementing BIG-IP LTM, you should understand your expectations and requirements, especially from the application team. Putting BIG-IP LTM into a not-so-critical environment would be very expensive, so you may want to consider more medium-range solutions that can do the same job. I would give BIG-IP LTM a rating of ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partners
Date published: 2022-07-02T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1448481 from
Feature rich, reliable, with good load balancing capabilities and good technical support
What is our primary use case?
We are using this solution for the web application firewall and load balancing.
What is most valuable?
F5 has many capabilities for load balancing and web application firewall features.
What needs improvement?
There should be more logging improvements on F5. The logging features are too limited and do not give us a solid understanding of what's happening. For example, the web application firewall logs don't say complete, or why this is blocked, which signature or which root cause is blocking the log.
Also, it can provide more understandable windows or dashboards regarding the latency of the application.
Citrix has cheap tools that show what is happening and describe why did they happen.
I would like to see improvements to the dashboard, latency reporting, and monitoring. Improvements in these areas would be very valuable.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using F5 for approximately four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
F5 is very stable. We have gone 300 days with no failures.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
In regards to scalability, I have never experienced any bottlenecks of the hardware or the features of F5. F5 doesn't have any latencies.
With Citrix, at times we experience some latencies when the web application requires more complex directions, inspections, and more complex load balancing features.
The number of users is variant. Currently, we have more than 10,000 users.
How are customer service and technical support?
I have not experienced any issues with technical support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Citrix doesn't have as many options.
If you were to compare Citrix with F5, the pros of F5 is the idle features. It's very powerful and you can do tons of work with a few lines.
With Citrix, you have to learn and understand the regular expressions, but the regular expressions consume a lot of the hardware. Also, it is much more complicated.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
F5 pricing is too high, compared to Citrix.
If a big sector or a company needs more security and more control over applications and the ADC, F5 is the best choice. But if a company needs only an ADC, without the web application firewall features, Citrix is fine.
What other advice do I have?
For those who are interested in this solution and you want more control over the applications then F5 is fine.
In the future, F5 will be our first choice, but everything can change.
What happens with the next features, we don't know. Maybe Citrix will overcome the problems and will become a more powerful tool than F5.
Without consideration of the price, I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-11-12T00:00:00-05:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
reviewer1356177 from
High quality and stable; traffic learning feature provides great information
What is our primary use case?
We use the whole pallet of the Big-IP products starting with the Application Security Management, the web application firewall for the F5. We use it for the protection of files at sites and we also use the load balancer. I also have experience with the airlock and we're now researching the possibility of exchanging our Big-IP system with something else. We're hoping to find a solution that's better for the cloud but which can be a hybrid. We have a partnership with several vendors and I work as an IT security engineer.
What is most valuable?
I've found Traffic Learning to be the most valuable feature in this solution.
What needs improvement?
This solution could be improved by reducing the cost. It's the main reason that we're considering another option for our website even though we're very satisfied with the way the Big-IP works and the way Big-IP protects our environment, but it's very expensive. We are keen to find out if there is a similar system for technology that would suit us and cost less.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a very stable solution. I've been using their products for years and have never had any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution scales with ease. You can add equipment, reduce equipment, add configs, it is very flexible.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support respond quickly and they are helpful. Their communities are very involved. I would say I'm super satisfied.
How was the initial setup?
Sometimes implementation is simple and sometimes it's complex, it really depends on the situation. If you've done it before, deployment can be accomplished in half an hour, but if it's from scratch it can take anywhere up to two days. For anyone with experience in deploying this kind of equipment, it's usual that something always happens and problems arise. It usually takes one or two engineers to carry out the deployment.
What other advice do I have?
I don't have much advice other than to suggest that people look for high quality solutions to implement. It's really about what the client wants and if they're prepared to take the risk of a less expensive solution they need to realize that it might also mean a product that is less good quality.
I would rate this product a nine out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2020-06-17T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
MufeedSiaj from
Completely stable solution with a perfect multi-data center
What is our primary use case?
I use BIG-IP LTM for load balancing and WAF.
What is most valuable?
The multi-data center is perfect.
What needs improvement?
BIG-IP LTM's sandboxing integration could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using BIG-IP LTM for two to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
BIG-IP LTM is completely stable, and its performance is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I believe BIG-IP LTM is scalable, but you have to pay for extra expansions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward, and I would rate the ease of the setup process as 4.5 out of five. The ACC deployment took one day, but the WAF tuning took around two weeks because it was a new application and needed tuning.
What about the implementation team?
We used an in-house team.
What was our ROI?
I would rate our ROI as 4.5 out of five.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
BIG-IP LTM isn't a cheap solution - I'd rate its pricing as three out of five.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I evaluated Citrix 40 Web.
What other advice do I have?
You need an expert to set up the policies, as it's not a straightforward process. I would give BIG-IP LTM a rating of nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2022-06-25T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
ChiefSecd99d from
It is a central point of entry for our user base providing user authentication
What 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 issues
What 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 by
Mahmoud-Yassin from
Very stable and scalable with the application firewall a valuable feature
What is our primary use case?
We mainly use this solution for application delivery and application security - the product is used on a daily basis. We are partners of F5 and I'm the head of IT infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
The application firewall is a very good feature.
What needs improvement?
The policies management could be improved, that's why I'm doing a comparison of other solutions. This is also a very expensive solution.
I'd like to see external loading included as part of the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable overall.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This solution is scalable.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is very good.
How was the initial setup?
Deployment time depends on the size of the organization. In some places it takes a week or two; in others it can take three months. There is very little maintenance required but if necessary we do it ourselves. We do upgrades ourselves and maybe rely on technical support once a year.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Everything is included in the license fee but it's a very expensive solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. If it were less expensive I'd rate it higher.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:Partner
Date published: 2020-06-23T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Thameem Ansari from
Very dependable and stable in its market category
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case for this solution is as an alternative for ADT. We work with standard enterprise customers because this product is not affordable for the SME, it's not a cheap solution. We are partners with F5 and I'm a pre-sales and technical executive.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the iRule.
What needs improvement?
The reporting could be improved and I'd also like to see the UI adjusted to make configuration easier. There are some things in the F5 configuration that are complicated.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for 16 years in total, continuously for the last seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I think this solution is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution.
How are customer service and technical support?
Compared to other solutions, the technical support is not very user friendly.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously worked with Fortinet which is a much more reasonably priced solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is somewhat more complex than you would find in other solutions. Implementation can be completed in a couple of days but in terms of the configuration firewall of the product, for any application it will take a minimum of 15 days and up to a month.
What other advice do I have?
If a company wants a good solution and has the money for it, I would recommend F5.
I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclaimer: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:partner
Date published: 2020-07-26T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Mahmoud-Yassin from
You can fully automate disaster recovery
What is our primary use case?
I work for a bank, and we have a mobile banking app with around 25,000 users. We use LTM for load balancing on the internal network, and the web feature helps us fill holes in application security due to vulnerabilities in legacy applications.
It also provides perimeter protection against DDoS attacks and SQL injection.
What is most valuable?
F5's attack signatures and automation are the most valuable features. The disaster recovery capabilities are also excellent. You don't need to do anything. It has automatic failover from production.
What needs improvement?
LTM's cloud capabilities could be improved. Cloud providers all offer load balancing, but you can't get the same level of security. F5's cloud service is still not on par with its on-prem service.
F5 acquired multiple companies a few years ago, but they still haven't integrated those solutions. For example, F5 acquired Shape Security, which had an excellent solution for detecting bots and automated login attacks, but F5 offers the solution in an inflexible way.
It is only available as a cloud-based solution. It isn't zone-based. Some companies are restricted from sending financial data outside the country because of GDPR in Europe or other national regulations. Here in the UAE, we can't send host data out.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used LTM for 10 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate LTM nine out of 10 for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
LTM is highly scalable, especially if you are moving away from hardware appliances. You can go for a VM and follow the basic steps of sizing, etc. and you can buy additional licenses if necessary.
How are customer service and support?
F5's standard support isn't the best, but their premium support is good if you're willing to pay for it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used a different product called Avi. Its load balancing wasn't as mature as F5's, and Avi couldn't perform automated disaster recovery as well. We used it extensively for a year and a half for internal services.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up LTM is simple if you have basic network and security knowledge. We have on-prem and cloud versions because we are still not fully migrated to the cloud. Some of our services are still running inside the data center.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
LTM is a good product, but it's expensive. They should make it more competitive because cloud providers offer free load balancing. Cloud providers can't cover all the security aspects of F5, but you get a decent amount of security. Cloud environments are becoming the norm across the IT industry. Many of the larger companies that previously used on-prem infrastructure are switching to the cloud, so companies like Fortinet and Palo Alto are reducing their prices. Otherwise, they can't compete in the cloud.
What other advice do I have?
I rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager nine out of 10. If you are considering LTM, you should think about your requirements. Do you have an enterprise use case? Do you need security? If not, you might be fine with just a simple load balancer. However, LTM is a good option if you need security automation and load balancing with granular capabilities. It depends on what your business needs.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2023-03-14T00:00:00-04:00
Rated 5 out of
5 by
Jiri 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 by
reviewer1433067 from
Flexible with good technical support and horizontal scalability
What is our primary use case?
The F5 is something we purchased for another project that has not been turned on just yet.
What is most valuable?
The solution is very powerful.
The product is quite flexible.
The horizontal scalability that is on offer is very good as well.
What needs improvement?
I would like to see some better documentation focused on our website and better search criteria. That's probably the best way to say that there needs to help with research.
The cost of the solution is pretty high. It would be ideal if it was more reasonable.
For how long have I used the solution?
We were originally supposed to launch this project for a client, however, that hasn't materialized yet.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
While we never really got around to scaling the solution just yet, there is horizontal scalability that is on offer that seems very good.
This is being deployed in a service provider environment. Therefore, it'll be impactful to all of our customers. However, I would say as far as internal support users, we have a team of probably ten that'll be supporting this product once it's launched in production.
How are customer service and technical support?
In terms of technical support, so far it has been pretty good. That said, it's more to set up the solution versus actual production support. They're not helping us deal with bugs or glitches, they've just been helping us with a rather complex implementation. We've been satisfied with their assistance in that sense. They seem knowledgeable and responsive.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is largely complex. However, we had a lot of help from their internal sales team or support team has been important in terms of working around the difficulties.
We have a staff of ten that are handling deployment and maintenance. They're not dedicated just to this product, however. They support our overall service provider architecture.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost is quite high. The long-term support in particular is quite high.
Customers need to be aware that each feature is licensable, which allows costs to accrue.
What other advice do I have?
We're just a customer. We don't have a business relationship with F5.
The F5 is something we purchased for another project that has not yet been turned up. That said, the experience I've had with F5 has been very positive, specifically working directly with their corporate sales engineering team.
Overall, I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. If it wasn't for the high cost of the product, I might rate it a bit higher.
I would advise those considering the solution to explore all options. Specifically, the total cost of ownership. It can be lower with some other vendors. A10 is oftentimes a lower cost of ownership. One challenge with F5 is everything is a licensable feature. Whereas something like an A10 is not. You see the same challenges with a Cisco type of device as well, however, it's in a different arena, with different products.
Disclaimer: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Date published: 2020-12-05T00:00:00-05:00
