F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Reviews

I mainly use LTM to protect applications.

LTM's most valuable features include application security, data collection, and parameter-level rules. 

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.

I've been using LTM for six years.

LTM is a stable product.

LTM is scalable.

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.

I would recommend LTM to other users and give it a rating of nine out of ten.

I use BIG-IP LTM for load balancing and WAF.

The multi-data center is perfect.

BIG-IP LTM's sandboxing integration could be improved.

I've been using BIG-IP LTM for two to three years.

BIG-IP LTM is completely stable, and its performance is good.

I believe BIG-IP LTM is scalable, but you have to pay for extra expansions.

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.

We used an in-house team.

I would rate our ROI as 4.5 out of five.

BIG-IP LTM isn't a cheap solution - I'd rate its pricing as three out of five.

I evaluated Citrix 40 Web.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've been using it for two years.

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.

It is very scalable. We have thousands of users.

The technical support is top notch.

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.

We did it in-house.

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.

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.

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.

The solution could improve the documentation.

I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for approximately 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We primarily use the solution for security purposes.

The security on offer from the solution is very good.

The stability is excellent.

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. 

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.

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.

I also have experience with Check Point. 

We did not install the solution ourselves. We used an integrator that handled the process and helped us set everything up. 

We used an integrator to assist with the installation. We were pleased with the results. There was nothing to complain about the results.

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.

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. 

We are using this solution as a load balancer and reverse proxy.

The most valuable feature is customization.

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.

I have been working with F5 BIG-IP for approximately seven years but our organization has been using this solution for 13 years.

This solution is stable. We have not experienced any issues.

It's a scalable solution and we have not had any limitations. We have approximately 3,000 users.

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.

When we were setting up for Azure we had some challenges.

We have an internal team of two for maintenance and reporting.

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.

We are a solution provider and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

Some of our clients use it as a load balancer. It can also be used as a web application firewall to protect your web-based applications from attacks.

The most valuable feature is the proxy. It is set up as a reverse proxy in front of the server. This feature allows me to do anything with the traffic, such as inspecting it. Most other solutions don't provide you with this capability.

This solution allows you to write scripts that can run on F5 devices. These scripts can be used to monitor traffic and look for keywords, and then perform a corresponding action such as blocking or allowing the request, or giving the user an error.

Big IP supports load balancing from network layer four up to layer seven.

More training should be available to customers. There is a guide that is available on the internet, but the training is not as good as others, such as Cisco. While F5 does have a big market share, it is not easy to find a well-training F5 engineer. If they made it easier for engineers to get F5 training then it would be better.

I have been working with F5 BIG-IP for five years.

This product is very stable. I have seen some instability with newly released versions, so I normally wait for a stable release before I upgrade an older one.

I have often been in touch with technical support and most of the time they are good. The response time is usually about one hour, although if it is a priority one issue then they will respond within 40 minutes at the maximum.

The initial setup is straightforward. If the analysis is already complete then it should only take five or ten minutes to deploy.

When you purchase the virtual edition or the hardware, it comes with the base license. There are additional costs depending on what modules or what functionality is required.

I consider F5 to be my network within my network because the traffic has to go through it. This includes things like the load balancer.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is to learn and understand the architecture of the device. It will do very well for you if you understand it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

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.

I have been using F5 for about two years.

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.

It is scalable and should meet our future requirements.

Technical support is OK. Usually, you don't have direct support from the vendor. You have intermediating in the middle.

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.

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.