F5 Networks, Inc. has announced new solutions to make it easier for organisations to scale to the cloud, extend software defined networking (SDN) deployments, and add intelligence and programmability to IT environments.
With a unified suite of physical and virtual products featuring F5’s innovative ScaleN architecture, organisations can seamlessly scale operations to realise the full value of virtualisation, cloud computing, and on-demand IT.
With this announcement, F5 is introducing BIG-IP v11.4 software, providing enhanced features including integration capabilities with SDN topologies based on VXLAN and NVGRE environments, increased programmability and control-plane extensibility with F5’s new iCall technology, providing the dynamic automation of event-driven policy decisions in the network and updated platform offerings, including the completion of the BIG-IP hardware refresh, on-demand licensing, and more powerful BIG-IP virtual editions with the industry’s broadest hypervisor support.
ScaleN intelligently allocates resources to scale systems up, down, in, and out as needed across physical and virtual solutions with complete device flexibility and resilience. Unlike other vendors’ offerings that scale capacity unpredictably, ScaleN technology enables organisations to manage resources dynamically by dedicating resources to a particular application, service, or instance. IT administrators are free to implement highly flexible systems that scale resources to any cloud or datacentre location based on what applications require, and then scale those resources back when no longer needed. Customers enjoy intelligent resource usage based on business policies and the ability to combine application delivery services with emerging SDN, cloud, and network virtualisation initiatives.
In addition, only ScaleN provides a way to seamlessly consolidate infrastructures and maximise application availability without paying an associated performance penalty for adding new services. When comparing device performance levels and scalability, F5’s approach can scale infrastructures at one-fifth the cost of competitors’ products. The software- and hardware-based ADC products introduced today leverage ScaleN.
Today, enterprises and service providers are challenged with integrating disparate technologies into a comprehensive, efficient system. As organisations seek agility and cost savings, they need solutions that can seamlessly extend application infrastructures alongside new data center topologies like cloud models, network functions virtualisation (NFV), and SDN. However, IT teams are wary of products that will add complexity, isolate infrastructure components, or make systems more difficult to manage.
Sitting between end-users and applications, F5 solutions provide greater control of the infrastructure, improve application delivery and data management, and give users secure and accelerated access to applications from their corporate desktops and smart devices. As a component of ScaleN, F5’s Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP) technology enables flexible resource allocation. Therefore, resources can be redirected to applications as needed, as opposed to remaining idle or segmented merely by device.
F5 offers integrated availability, acceleration, optimisation, and security solutions that enhance the value of disparate technologies throughout IT infrastructures to simplify management and reduce the number of products needed to perform related network tasks. The BIG-IP system’s layer 4–7 services and ScaleN enable organisations to dynamically grow their application delivery infrastructure as needed, and enhance existing (and future) SDN, NFV, and cloud infrastructure solutions.
“For organisations pursuing emerging technologies like SDN, it’s critical to consider the needs of applications as part of those plans,” said Karl Triebes, EVP of Product Development and CTO at F5. “With the industry’s only integrated platform for application delivery and our unique ScaleN architecture, F5 provides the tools necessary to address growing application delivery requirements without sacrificing network flexibility or user experience. These new solutions empower customers to pursue the infrastructure model that best fits their needs, regardless of how specific datacentre, cloud, or SDN resources are deployed.”
