F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Reviews

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.

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.

The SharePoint SSO part has some room for improvement. Opening documents and spreadsheets on local applications in on our specific situation is not possible.

None at all.

No issues with scalability.

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.

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.

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.

We tried FortiADC briefly. However the big contender was Citrix NetScaler.

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.

This product has helped us build robust solutions for what my company does.

We are fond of the load balancing feature for DNS and servers. Also, these can help you natting/hiding the real IP.

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.

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.

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.

I have not encountered any scalability issues.

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.

Regarding load balancing, this was our first product.

If you do not understand the design of this product, initial setup is tricky. If you do understand it, initial setup is straightforward.

This was implemented by an in-house team.

With the new pricing model, ROI was low, hence we switched.

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.

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.

BIG-IP has multiple uses, including VPN, application firewall, and load balancing.

BIG-IP can do anything. It's like a Swiss Army knife. 

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. 

I have used BIG-IP for about 15 years

BIG-IP LTM's hardware is stable, and the operating system is great. 

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.

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. 

Neutral

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. 

BIG-IP LTM is somewhat pricey for a small company with a limited budget. 

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.

I've found Traffic Learning to be the most valuable feature in this solution. 

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. 

I've been using this solution for three years. 

This is a very stable solution. I've been using their products for years and have never had any issues. 

This solution scales with ease. You can add equipment, reduce equipment, add configs, it is very flexible.

Technical support respond quickly and they are helpful. Their communities are very involved. I would say I'm super satisfied.

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. 

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. 

Our use case for this product is a web function firewall and network firewall that we can use on one platform. 

I like the combination of ADC and WAN.

The UI could be improved and we also find the pricing to be quite high. 

I've been using this solution for three years. 

We have over 50 customers using this solution and it's very stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

The customer support is very good. 

The initial setup is quite complex and requires a pre-deployment assessment because of the range of parameters involved. I think the assessment process could be simplified. 

Licensing is paid on an annual basis and there are no additional costs. 

I recommend this solution and rate it eight out of 10. 

There are many use cases. It is mainly used for local traffic management. It can also be used as an advanced firewall for an application or as a VPN policy manager.

We have cloud, on-premise, and hybrid deployments.

Bandwidth optimization and capacity awareness of the bandwidth are valuable features. Its video streaming capabilities are also very useful.

The user experience for dashboards and reports can be improved. They should make dashboards and the reporting system easier for users. They need to add more reports to the dashboard. Currently, for complicated reports, I have to do the customization.

It should have more integration with network firewalls to be able to gather all the information required for traffic management.

We were their partners for five years, and since last year, we are officially their distributor.

It is really awesome. You can scale from one or two servers to hundreds of servers. They have all the modules that a customer needs. You can go for on-premise or cloud deployment. You can have whatever you need.

Our clients are medium and large businesses.

They have 24/7 support. You can open a ticket directly in F5, and there is no need to use another system.

They reply very fast. They usually get back within four hours, and sometimes, you get a response immediately. They have four-tier system support.

Its initial setup is straightforward. It is just like a wizard and not complex. It takes only a few seconds.

You can buy it on a yearly basis, or you can go for a subscription. For on-premise boxes, it is just the RMA.

I would rate F5 Traffic Management Operating System a nine out of ten.

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. 

The most valuable feature is the iRule.

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. 

I've been using this solution for 16 years in total, continuously for the last seven years. 

I think this solution is very stable. 

This is a scalable solution. 

Compared to other solutions, the technical support is not very user friendly. 

I previously worked with Fortinet which is a much more reasonably priced solution. 

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.

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. 

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. 

The application firewall is a very good feature. 

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. 

I've been using this solution for seven years. 

The solution is stable overall. 

This solution is scalable. 

The technical support is very good. 

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. 

Everything is included in the license fee but it's a very expensive solution. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. If it were less expensive I'd rate it higher.