A10 Networks Thunder ADC Reviews

We use the solution for ProTechVIP, the software, the client, the servers, and the firewalls. We mix them, protecting the connection and the servers from direct access.

We can control access based on the specific application. If other devices are attempting to directly access the servers, you can block them. Additionally, you can balance the load among servers to optimize performance. For example, utilizing caching can make the application run faster.

It's very simple to use.

The product is expensive. 

I have been using A10 Networks Thunder ADC as a partner for over two years.

The solution’s stability is very good.

The solution’s scalability is good. We also sell directly to the government, sometimes more than 20 boxes.

If you need more specific guys, it takes time, or you can get support from them. After sending many emails, Thunder calls directly to talk, and then we can talk.

Neutral

The initial setup is very simple. The issue is that it achieves high output across all its features, specifically the output ports. This affects the customer's solution because sometimes, the customer is even aware of the user's activity on certain servers. If you have all the necessary information, we can quickly deploy the solution within two to three days.

The size of the Thunder ADC depends on its configuration. For example, the cache converter typically includes more than two rack units, often requiring at least three rack units for adequate space.

I rate it a ten out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

ROI is very good because it optimizes the process.

I rate the product’s pricing a nine out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive. However, When you use KPS, I rate it five because it's very expensive.

A10 Networks' Thunder ADC is being sold by adding hardware (HxD) and configuring certain aspects like the Exponent. These modified versions are sold directly to customers. They are using HPANETX Thunder models, some of which originate from JTerrin. I believe these models come from Microsoft, which has a significant data analytics contract. Here in Brazil, UsersBox is being utilized, and there is an issue when I try to sell a new box from ATEM. My box is five times more expensive than the other one. I sent the box's serial number to GuidePhone A10 for verification, and it turns out that the box is from Microsoft Japan. Despite the conference being for Microsoft Japan, these boxes somehow ended up here in Brazil.

The solution requires less maintenance.

The A10 Networks Thunder ADC can be more expensive than alternatives offering similar performance. Another issue is its architecture: when using our software architecture, there are limitations when creating new instances, such as a new VS. Typically, with solutions like F5, you need to define and allocate resources upfront when creating a new instance. If you need more resources allocated to a Virtual Service, you must often delete and recreate it. In contrast, A10 Networks allows for more flexible resource allocation adjustments without needing to recreate the instance.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for load balancing purposes.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is an easy-to-use and flexible solution.

The solution should add automation features in the next release.

I have been using A10 Networks Thunder ADC for five to seven years.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a stable solution.

Less than ten people are using the solution in our organization.

The feedback from the solution's technical support was satisfactory.

The solution’s initial setup was easy.

Our organization did an infrastructure refresh some years ago from Cisco to A10 Networks Thunder ADC. The migration was quite easy from Cisco to A10 Networks Thunder ADC.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is for servicing a remote workforce. Especially these days when a lot of people are working remotely, a solution like this is important. We have to deploy applications and we do not necessarily want to upload the applications into the cloud or locally on desktops or laptops. ADC is really good for desktop virtualization and application delivery. Instead of having a full client, you look at a projection hosted in the data center. All the processing is being done back in the data center in the corporate domain. Because of the fact that the processing is not being taken care of locally, ADC is a very lightweight client that handles the feed on your laptop. It also enhances security.  

Everything is kept in the server room, not exported locally to someone's house or whatever location they are working in. You do not have to worry about securing the data. There are certain programs that you have to patch a lot, like Adobe Flash — which seems to always need a patch. Instead of doing that on all 100 laptops that are in the field, you just do it once in the data center and everybody uses that same version. That type of simplification for your deployments is another benefit of ADC.  

Because the maintenance is all happening at the data center, it is a lot more controlled and it is way easier. Another thing that this helps with is that only certain people get access to certain applications. The accountants are really the only ones who need access to the accounting software. It is really easy to set up groups based upon Active Directory and then define who gets access to those applications. That ability to limit access is really kind of cool and can potentially save money and licensing costs.  

The most valuable parts of this product have to do with the efficiency of deployments and data security.  

Everybody says Network Thunder works as advertised. It is just one of those things that actually performs as advertised. I take no news as good news. I do not really have any negatives. We usually like to get well-balanced reviews from people who have experience with the product and especially from the vendors themselves.  

As far as improvements, that may be different than things that are missing or broken. I just do not have any cons. I do not have any glaringly big needs for additions either. One thing that might be improved is the interface. I think it is pretty straightforward. It is just not the prettiest, but it is functional. That is getting pretty granular.  

Maybe one concrete thing that they can improve on is their two-factor authentication. Just do something to make the native solution more robust. That would probably be the one thing that I have heard mentioned. They have basic two-factor authentication. It is also nice that they have options for integrating with other two-factor products. The problem with that is that then you have to buy two products and license two solutions. One customer made a comment saying that it would be nice if we only had to buy one product to take care of the whole solution. In other words, they thought it would be better to just be able to buy the A10 and not buy two products to create the two-factor authentication they would have preferred. That should be something that A10 could at least offer.  

We have been selling A10 ADC (Application Delivery Controller) over the past couple of years. We have been selling the load balancer for going on nine years.  

There are not really any nagging glitches or any kind of little ongoing annoying problems. Certainly, there are none that I have experienced and not that I have heard of from people using it. If there are ever any issues they are just normal, temporary issues that you expect when you work with technology. That is if you can consider anything that is a glitch to be normal.  

If we are talking about load balancing, then I can speak more about stability issues. But the Network Thunder ADC has mostly been very good. There was an issue a few years back with one of my customers and A10 addressed the problem and took care of it promptly. Isolated incidents can have to do with a lot of things within a larger architecture. It would be a problem with the architecture then, and not the product.   

We never really tried to scale the internal initial deployment hands-on. It has been left as is. More users have been added over time but nothing so crazy that it really required some type of scaling of the product. This company is a little over a hundred users. They are all using it remotely, from home, daily.  

Roles for the users are just all over the board.  

For just Network Thunder, I have not had to deal with the A10 technical support team. Our clients never said anything about how they like it one way or another. I assume that means they have not had to contact them either. There has just been one load balancing issue a client had and it was isolated to that location. A10 took care of it. They are one for one as far as tackling problems I know about.  

The installation is absolutely straightforward. Nothing more to say about that.  

As far as how many people are usually required to maintain it, in this company it is just one technician for 100 people using the product. His role is probably considered a straight system admin. It would not be a senior tech or even someone dedicated to the product.  

I can just say that it is cheaper than other solutions that are supposed to do the same thing. That is actually one of the reasons that customers chose it.  

It is a pretty good product. On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate A10 Networks Thunder ADC as a nine-out-of-ten. I do not get too many complaints from customers. Giving it a nine seems fair. It works as advertised.   

Our clients are using it for their entire network. They have multiple networks across India. They are using it for application load balancing. 

They have multiple servers. 

The customers are using all the features. It's got a good set of features. 

It is a stable solution.

The product is easy to set up. 

It's scalable. 

Technical support has been helpful. 

I'm not sure what improvements can be made. I'm a reseller. I don't deal with the solution directly.

We've had a customer that wanted to use an IPsec VPN and we haven't been able to put the two together.

The license does not come along with it, so you have to purchase everything separately. 

The costs can be quite high.

We've used the solution for one year.

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

The product can scale. It's not an issue. 

Technical support is good. It's very prompt. My customer had a support problem.

Positive

The initial setup is not complex. It's rather straightforward. 

I'd rate the product five out of five in terms of ease of setup. 

The product has been very good, and, until now, the customer is not facing any problems. They have been happy with the product.

How long the deployment takes depends on the customer and the scenario. In my case, I had it up and running in three or four months with no downtime whatsoever. Typically, it can be a one-day job. 

We pay a licensing fee on a yearly basis.

The pricing is okay. As far as other products are concerned, it is quite pricey, however.

I'm a reseller for A10.

This is one of the best products. It is capable. I'll always suggest it for my customers as it is better than the other products. If you compare to other products, it's a one box solution, as we say. Everything comes in the one box, and that's the beauty of this product.

I'd rate the product ten out of ten. 

The primary use case is server load balancing.

We use the on-premise deployment model.

It has provided improvement in regards to flexibility of our applications between data centers.

It does improve operational efficiency, but it's not overwhelming.

The Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB) is simple to use.

It's not easy to use (mediocre at best). It's difficult for administrators to maneuver through the web user interface. It should be more intuitive through the web GUI. If you're a command line person, you can get around. However, the web UI is very difficult, and for our operational folks, they need the web UI.

The solution’s security features are minimal. I'm not impressed by the DDoS solution.

Traffic flow issues are very difficult, as there's no means for us to analyze the traffic coming in or out of the appliance without technical support. 

They need to improve in-depth diagnostics. I don't know how to do a tcpdump on the appliance. We need to do packet captures on the appliance to analyze what's going through it. Information is not as easy to attain as it is with other vendors. Better diagnostic tools would probably help.

Stability has been fine. It's been stable.

We upgraded our solution last year.

For deployment and maintenance, we only need a couple of administrators (less than 10 people).

The scalability is appropriate.

It's moving along based on the business growth, so there are no plans to increase usage.

The technical support is not great, but they are not poor either. They're fair. We don't open a support case that often, but when we do, it's not immediate as far as their response. When they do respond, they come up with a collaboration to troubleshoot or find an answer. So, it's fair at best.

The solution's support for our on-premise applications do their job. The basic functionalities for on-prem services are okay. They're not anything great. They do what they're supposed to do.

We previously had F5 and switched because of costs. 

We are able to do the same things (as the previous solution), but it is cheaper when we have to renew.

The initial setup was straightforward. The deployment took three to four months.

We were pretty familiar with the product, so we did the deployment ourselves.

It has broken even on ROI. We haven't lost any, which is good, but we haven't gained anything.

It is $7000 per unit for the support annually.

It does do the job, if your environment is simplistic enough. The product is fair for its market.

We test and used the single pane of glass traffic management, but we don't use that now. We went away from that. Now, we administer our devices individually.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC can be deployed on-premise or virtually.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is used for global load balancing.

The most valuable features in A10 Networks Thunder ADC are the ease of configuration, user-friendliness, and simplicity to sell to customers.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC could improve on the Application Delivery Controller. it's not a fully-fledged web application firewall solution. For example, application data and support need to improve.

I have been using A10 Networks Thunder ADC for approximately two years.

The stability of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is good.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is scalable.

We have approximately a team of six using A10 Networks Thunder ADC.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC has a very good support structure. In each region, they have a very well-experienced team to support when it comes to pre-sales. They have a very capable team.

The setup of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is very straightforward. If everything is in order, onboarding one application can be done in a few hours.

The price of A10 Networks Thunder ADC depends on capacity and the customer's requirement. They have several offerings. They have different price models and options to choose from. Additionally, you need to subscribe to support for the hardware appliances.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a very natural solution in the industry. When compared to the other vendors, it's easier to use, more user-friendly, and more mature.

I rate A10 Networks Thunder ADC a nine out of ten.

Our company uses the solution to enhance our client's connection to their data centers. One data center is in Brasilia and the other is in Sao Paulo. The solution bolsters the connection between the data centers.  

The DNS application firewall and load balancing are very valuable. 

A graphical dashboard for analyzing performance is needed. Sometimes, it is necessary to use the CLI to see connections. 

I have been using the solution for five years. 

The solution is very, very stable with no issues. I rate stability a ten out of ten. 

The solution is scalable by adding new appliances. 

I contacted support once by opening a query on their website and it was answered quickly. My experience with support was excellent. 

The setup is easy. 

We contracted with a partner for deployment which was completed in one day. 

The solution costs less than its competitors. 

We evaluated five equipment options for our client and prices were very different. Technically, the options were comparable so we chose the solution because it was the least expensive. 

The solution is good and I never have any issues because of the equipment. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

We use it to load-balance the website.

It's seamless.

The solution has made things easier in terms of operations efficiency It's one less thing to worry about. It just sits and it runs. 

We don't use many of the features. We're just using the basic ADC features. We're not really using anything particularly extensive on them. They sit and work most of the time. 

The ease of use is very good. It's very robust. It just sits and works. We forget that it's there a lot of the time.

The user interface is what people complain about most of the time, particularly if they don't use it very often. Then they complain that it's a bit clunky. It works from an ADC point of view, but the interface is a bit clunky.

It's rock solid. It just sits and works. That's the way you want it.

It's definitely scalable. We've not had any problems. I'm looking at the CPU graphs and it's not bothered at the moment.

The support is very good. They're very responsive if we ever have any problems. That was what drew us to them in the first place.

Prior to this one, we had another Thunder ADC. Before that, we didn't really have a requirement for an ADC. This was the first one we ever had. We've did have some free, software-based ones in the past. But when it became a bigger requirement, we ended up with ADC.

The initial setup was straightforward because we had an A10 engineer who came onsite and helped set it up for us. It wasn't plug-and-play. We did have to have some engagement. The deployment took a couple of days. We have continued adding more and more services onto it.

We put it in primarily for Exchange, to do some load-balancing at the time. These days, if we put it in, we'd have a lot more change-control to go through, but back in those days we just put it in, set it up, and away it went.

There aren't any licensing costs associated with it. It's just an appliance and you get all the licenses with it.

We looked at Kemp and there was another one, but it was about ten years ago. We went with A10 because of price and support.

Do research. I'd probably look at virtual appliances if I was going forward. One thing we could do with is a proper Dev and Test environment, which we don't have. I would have had some virtual appliances for Dev and Test. We did talk about that, but we haven't gotten around to doing it.

There are about ten of us who use it from a management point of view. But all the staff and students benefit from it.

It requires two or three people for maintenance.

We don't have any specific plans to increase usage. A lot of things might be going to the cloud, so there might be less use going forward.

I would give it an eight out of ten because it sits and works, it's robust. But the interface could do with a bit of work.