F5 Networks White Papers

Title Goes Here

08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

Description Goes Here

F5 ARX and Data Domain Deduplication Storage Tiering Best Practices

23 Jun 2009 07:00:00 EDT

Storage tiering helps businesses cut costs by automatically migrating aged or reduced-value files to lower-cost storage. Combining file virtualization with deduplication storage provides a simple, fast, and economical path to effective storage tiering. This paper reviews best practices for integrating Data Domain and F5 solutions for long-term archiving and data protection.

Scaling SIP

11 Jun 2009 07:00:00 EDT

This paper addresses the challenges and solutions when providing high-availability and scalability for SIP services. By choosing the right high-availability solution for SIP environments, organizations can ensure reliable services while maintaining the ability to rapidly support new functionality and infrastructure without sacrificing uptime or quality.

Intelligent Layer 7 DoS and Brute Force Protection for Web Applications

09 Jun 2009 07:00:00 EDT

Both Denial-of-Service (DoS) and Brute Force Attacks have existed for many years, and many network devices tout the ability to withstand them. However, most of today's DoS attacks target layer 7 (L7) by overwhelming applications with seemingly valid requests and Brute Force programs can send more than one million attempts per second. This paper will discuss how to intelligently mitigate these types of attacks.

Unified Application and Data Delivery

29 May 2009 07:00:00 EDT

This paper outlines F5's vision for a new approach to Unified Application and Data Delivery Services, explores the business benefits of such an approach, defines an architecture to deliver those services, and outlines a roadmap for implementation.

Application Ready Solution Templates

08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

F5's Application Ready Solution Templates are designed to ensure that the savings realized through consolidation are protected by reducing the time, effort, and application-specific knowledge required of administrators to optimally deploy applications that are secure, fast, and available through the use of BIG-IP devices.

BIG-IP Live Install and Logical Volume Manager

08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

BIG-IP devices have long been a tool for applying "rolling upgrades" to the applications and systems that sit behind the BIG-IP device. With Live Install, this "stage->reboot->go live" sequence can now be applied to the BIG-IP device directly, creating a rolling upgrade scenario like those of the application systems behind it. Live Install also enables snapshot versioning for future versions of the BIG-IP system, a critical feature for both production and testing environments.

F5 BIG-IP v10

08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

The enhancements and new features available in BIG-IP v10 make this one of the most exciting new releases of an Application Delivery Controller in many years. The move toward a unified, adaptable dynamic infrastructure cannot be achieved without many of the innovative new features available in the new version of the BIG-IP system and the enhancements to its manageability make BIG-IP v10 more efficient than ever.

Inband Passive Monitors--Maintain Application Performance and Health

08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

Application health monitors are now a tried and true technology of the Application Delivery Controller, yet traditional monitors require interaction with the application. Inband passive monitors change that requirement and monitor applications transparently.

Optimizing the Business of IT

08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

New functionality in BIG-IP v10--such as resource provisioning and route domains--coupled with existing administrative domain capabilities enables IT to virtualize application delivery functions across departments. Sharing the investment in a unified application delivery solution across business constituents increases the return on investment while reducing the complexity inherent in managing multiple devices.

Resource Provisioning--Hardware Virtualization, Your Way

08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

BIG-IP resource provisioning combines the best features of each virtualization model by enabling BIG-IP LTM modules to run sandboxed without sharing resources, while giving them the ability to dynamical scale if/when needed. Resource provisioning is a new model in hardware virtualization, one that will change the face of application delivery and Application Delivery Controllers moving forward.

Unified Application Delivery

08 Apr 2009 07:00:00 EDT

By providing a unified Application Delivery Networking platform, F5 BIG-IP offers the ability for organizations to adopt a single platform for all its application delivery needs. Adopting an organizational standard for application delivery can reduce management and administrative costs and improve the ability of the organization to migrate smoothly from traditional to emerging application architectures, and address the unforeseen issues that always arise in the wake of the introduction of new initiatives.

F5 iControl

23 Feb 2009 07:00:00 EST

iControl provides the means by which F5's BIG-IP platform can be automated, integrated, and flexible such that it can adapt in real-time to changing network and application infrastructure conditions inside and outside the data center. Whether you are building out a new infrastructure or adapting to new technology, using iControl can enable unprecedented levels of control over and visibility into the application delivery process.

Simplifying Application Access Strategies

06 Jan 2009 07:00:00 EST

This white paper discusses unified access strategies, challenges and solutions within the network and access management industry. It defines the depth and breadth of the challenges with current access needs and how new solutions may solve them.

Built to Scale

01 Nov 2008 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper describes three proactive measures you can take during the development of an application to ensure it is secure, fast, and available when it hits superstar status.

Acceleration 102: Asymmetric or Symmetric?

01 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST

Both asymmetric and symmetric acceleration technologies can deliver great benefit to your users. But how and where do you deploy them? This paper illustrates how a typical company can benefit from asymmetric and symmetric acceleration.

Acceleration 101

19 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST

Getting your applications to work properly over a Wide Area Network (WAN) is a complex task, and it is not likely to get easier any time soon. This White Paper discusses how an Application Delivery Network can accelerate your applications and help make sure they are secure, fast, and available.

Accelerating Data Replication with F5 WANJet and EMC MirrorView/Asynchronous

01 May 2008 07:00:00 EST

This paper addresses disaster recovery plans, common barriers to success, and performance gains that can be achieved by combining the F5 WANJet application acceleration solution with CLARiiON MirrorView/A replication solutions from EMC.

Architecting Highly Available ESB Services - A Healthier, Happier SOA

01 May 2008 07:00:00 EST

In order to ensure that services are highly available and reliable it may be necessary to adapt a strategy that includes technology designed specifically to address the availability, reliability, and scalability issues: an Application Delivery Controller (ADC).

Automating the Data Center

01 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST

This paper discusses an alternative architecture that supports data center automation and dynamic provisioning without operating system virtualization.

Best practices for a Microsoft Hyper-V Dynamic Data Center in an HP BladeSystem environment

01 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST

This HP White Paper provides a general reference for a proof of concept for Microsoft Hyper-V in a dynamic data center scenario utilizing HP BladeSystem c-Class technology.

Caching Behavior of Web Browsers

01 Nov 2007 07:00:00 EST

Eliminating the need for the browser to download content on repeat visits can greatly improve the performance of web applications. This White Paper shows how the BIG-IP WebAccelerator can improve the utilization of the user's cache without needing to change the application.

Complying with PCI DSS Requirement 6.6

01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EST

In April 2008, PCI Security Standards Council (SSC) publicly released a clarification on PCI DSS Requirement 6.6 and provided two possible options to use for business compliance. The compliance deadline for Requirement 6.6 remains on June 30th, 2008, and with released clarifications, companies now have enough information and options to develop a sound compliance strategy. This paper will examine the clarifications provided by PCI SSC and suggest the most effective and reliable ways to comply.

Flattening and Reducing Monthly CDN Costs

01 Nov 2007 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper shows how an F5 BIG-IP WebAccelerator can significantly reduce the variability of a fee-based CDN while offering additional performance enhancements not available from traditional CDN vendors.

The F5 Acceleration Portfolio

01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EST

F5 is the leader in Application Delivery Networking, ensuring applications are secure, fast, and available. This White Paper focuses on fast. While nearly all F5 products increase application performance, this is an overview of specific F5 acceleration features across three F5 product lines.

Get to Know GPO

01 Oct 2008 07:00:00 EST

This paper covers the F5 FirePass integration with FullArmor's GPAnywhere. FullArmor is a leading provider of enterprise policy management on the Microsoft Windows platform. This paper also details Group Policy Objects.

Getting Green

01 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST

This paper discusses decreasing the impact of hardware on the environment and IT's bottom line through more efficient and better performing application delivery platforms.

Green IT: The Three "R"s

01 Jun 2008 07:00:00 EST

Applying the concepts of environmental-friendly policies to the data center through application delivery to green up your organization.

Keeping Your Head Above the Cloud: 7 Data Center Challenges Before Going Virtual

01 Aug 2008 07:00:00 EST

One of the pillars of the Virtual Data Center is virtual platform infrastructure, or the virtual machine; however virtual platforms are dependent on many other, oft forgotten components of both the physical and virtual data center. This White Paper details seven data center challenges before deploying a virtual data center.

Management Networks - Living Outside of Production

01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 EST

Many organizations choose to run data traffic and network management traffic over the same network links. This paper will discuss why it is critically important to segregate network management and control data traffic to ensure that problems can be solved even when the network is melting.

Passive Monitoring - Maintaining Performance and Health

01 Oct 2007 07:00:00 EST

Health monitoring, or the ability to verify that back-end systems are operational, is a basic tenant of load balancing and therefore critical to Application Delivery Controllers. This White Paper describes passive monitoring, and F5's monitoring solutions.

Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) and Message-based Load Balancing (MBLB)

01 May 2008 07:00:00 EST

The ability to provide new and creative methods of communications has ensured an SIP presence in almost every organization. The F5's message-based load balancing ensures a good user experience by maintaining the connection from the user's device to the server, and enables growth and performance analysis while eliminating downtime.

Seven Virtualization Challenges

01 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST

To ensure the full potential of your virtual platform solution, you need to make sure your application and storage network is prepared to handle the added stresses of a virtual machine (VM) infrastructure. This White Paper describes how F5 technology enables your network to adapt to virtualization needs, ensure high availability (HA), maximize resources, and improve performance so you can get the most out of your investment.

The VDC Maturity Model - Moving up the Virtual Data Center Stack

01 May 2008 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper defines the baseline and process of virtualization maturity for the data center.

VMware DRS: Why You Still Need Assured Application Delivery and Application Delivery Networking

01 Sep 2008 07:00:00 EST

VMware Infrastructure products provide the next generation virtual platform for the new data center, but they don't virtualize the network or application delivery. This White Paper details how the F5 BIG-IP LTM works with VMware to provide truly virtualized Application Delivery Networking.

Vulnerability Assessment Plus Web Application Firewall

01 Aug 2008 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper discusses new technology developed by WhiteHat Security and F5 Networks that enables organizations to immediately mitigate discovered vulnerabilities using a web application firewall.

SNMP: Simplified

08 Apr 2008 07:00:00 EST

The Simple Network Management Protocol defines a method for managing devices that connect to IP networks. The "simple" in SNMP refers to the requirements for a managed device, not the protocol. This white paper defines the history, frequently used terms, and implementation of SNMP.

Disaster Recovery: Not Just Planning for the Worst

14 Mar 2008 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper describes how businesses can use F5 Networks' BIG-IP GTM to leverage all the benefits of their secondary site in an active-active configuration to holistically manage their applications across multiple site. It also describes how you can use the BIG-IP Link Controller to maintain ISP link connectivity and WANJet to accelerate site-to-site data replication across the WAN

F5 and the 8 Ways to Virtualization

14 Mar 2008 07:00:00 EST

F5 pioneered the concept of breaking up data center virtualization technologies into eight unique categories within the data center. Any virtualization products or technologies implemented in the data center will fall into one of these eight categories. With this paper, F5 discusses how it has implemented these same technologies within its own product line, helping enterprises get closer to achieving their goal of a implementing a complete Virtual Data Center with F5's Application Delivery Networking products.

Clustered Multiprocessing: Changing the Rules of the Performance Game

23 Jan 2008 07:00:00 EST

Because improvements in practical computer power lag far behind these exponential hardware improvements, the key to maintaining processor performance has become multiprocessor or multicore design. This White Paper details how the Clustered Multiprocessor (CMP) from F5, in combination with TMOS, provides customers with scalability, extensibility, adaptability, and manageability.

VIPRION: The Cost of Management

22 Jan 2008 07:00:00 EST

The new F5 VIPRION chassis brings not only performance and capabilities beyond today's demands, but also creates cost efficiencies that will appeal to accountants and management everywhere. This White Paper highlights some unexpected savings that the deployment of the VIPRION system brings to the table.

The Fundamentals of HTTP

17 Jan 2008 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper shows how understanding HTTP, and how these headers control behavior of web-based applications, can lead to better end-user performance, as well as making it easier to choose an application acceleration solution that addresses the shortcomings of HTTP and browser-based solutions.

IPv6-101: Introduction

06 Nov 2007 07:00:00 EST

As the use of IPv6 within the Internet grows, the basic concept of IP address configuration and use becomes critical to all organizations. This White Paper gives a detailed introduction to IPv6.

Application Delivery Security: Integrated "Any App" Security

05 Nov 2007 07:00:00 EST

There are many unique challenges and pieces to application security that most devices today aren't able to provide. Most enterprises still want to provide application security with just a Web Application Firewall, ignoring the rest of the application security puzzle or leaving those duties to existing security appliances and controls. This White Paper describes application security, and discusses integrated security for any application.

Introduction to the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP)

05 Nov 2007 07:00:00 EST

The intent of this paper is to familiarize the reader with both the vision and need for SCTP. While it currently has a very limited use, its capabilities will soon prove too tempting, and SCTP adoption will grow quickly. Within IMS architecture, SCTP provides the call signaling over IP. The key benefits of SCTP, multi-homing and multi-streaming, will allow development of numerous new devices which include the ability to support and carry this new protocol

Applied Application Security - Positive and Negative Efficiency

16 Oct 2007 07:00:00 EST

After many years of purely negative security provided by anti-virus scanners, IDS/IPS, and antispam engines, it's refreshing to hear that the positive security model - the basis for tried and true security devices like network firewalls and ACLs - is coming back in vogue. This White Paper discusses positive and negative security models and Web Application Firewalls.

SQL Injection Evasion Detection

08 Oct 2007 07:00:00 EST

The detection of SQL injection attacks has primarily been accomplished through pattern matching techniques against signatures and keywords known to be malicious. Until recently, this technique has been successful. Now attackers are hiding their malicious intent in a variety of ways to escape detection. This White Paper discusses SQL Injection attacks, and how BIG-IP Application Security Manager technology can help prevent them.

What's New in 9.4.2: XML Firewall Features

08 Oct 2007 07:00:00 EST

The introduction of BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM) version 9.4.2 marks a major step forward. This White Paper describes the new version of ASM and its new XML firewall features.

XSS Evasion-Trying to hide in the all-concealing torchlight

08 Oct 2007 07:00:00 EST

Any site that stores data is at risk for exploitation. However, these interactive sites are a healthy breeding ground for attacks that attempt to use the data storage capabilities to reach a wide audience for the purpose of spreading malicious code and enticing users to share sensitive information. This White Paper discusses XSS attacks, and how BIG-IP Application Security Manager technology can help prevent them.

The SIP High Availability and Reliability Paradigm

14 Sep 2007 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper defines high availability and reliability in SIP-based services and discusses techniques of designing and building reliable SIP networks

Session Initiated Protocol (SIP): A Five-Function Protocol

14 Sep 2007 07:00:00 EST

The key to SIP is that it provides only five functions: user location, user availability, user capabilities, session setup, and session management. This White Paper defines SIP and discusses these five functions

RTSP: One of the Foundations of Convergence

14 Sep 2007 07:00:00 EST

Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is a foundation for the current convergence of communications. This White Paper discusses RTSP, and the BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) RTSP proxy service

Introduction to the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS): IMS Basic Concepts and Terminology

21 Sep 2007 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper is written to achieve two main goals: to explain the basic vision/need for the IMS architecture and to give the reader a high-level understanding of how it works. In the end, the overarching goal is to help educate the reader on this burgeoning and powerful technology change

IMS Ready, and Raring to Go!

21 Sep 2007 07:00:00 EST

By extending the capabilities of the F5 suite of products to include pre-built support of the core IMS needs, F5 is positioned to bring the same ease of design, deployment, and management to IMS that we have in enterprise architectures for more than a decade. This White Paper discusses how F5 provides security, performance, and availability to IP networks

Building the Next Generation Network Bridge: From Today's Network to the Future

21 Sep 2007 07:00:00 EST

The modern SP needs tools and technology to help them start deploying NGN services today on their existing networks with a mindful-eye toward tomorrow. This White Paper describes how F5 Networks provides these tools and technologies and is already a major contributor to many existing SP networks providing cutting-edge technology

Web Acceleration 2.0: Now No One Has to Wait

20 Sep 2007 07:00:00 EST

The demand for (and benefits of) web-based interfaces combined with an increasingly mobile and distributed workforce has exposed inefficiencies inherent in the browser, the network and its protocols, and the data center. These inefficiencies create performance problems for applications that continue to be magnified by emerging technologies like Web 2.0 and SOA. This White Paper details how F5's approach to Application Delivery Networking eliminates the bottlenecks inherent in browsers, in the network, and in the data

Virtualization Defined - Eight Different Ways

16 Aug 2007 07:00:00 EST

This White Paper focuses on virtualization as it pertains to the data center. Before considering any type of data center virtualization, it's important to define what technology or category of service you're trying to virtualize. This White Paper describes eight different categories of virtualization so readers thoroughly understand the differences (and similarities) between the definitions of virtualization

Load Balancing 101: Nuts and Bolts

16 Aug 2007 07:00:00 EST

The pervasiveness of load balancing technology does not mean it is universally understood, nor is it typically discussed other than from a basic, network-centric viewpoint. This White Paper thoroughly explains load balancing and strips away some of the mystery and magic from basic load balancing practices

Load Balancing 101: The Evolution to Application Delivery Controllers

07 Aug 2007 07:00:00 EST

One of the unfortunate effects of the continued evolution of the load balancer into today's application delivery controller (ADC) is that it is often too easy to forget the basic problem for which load balancers were originally created-producing highly available, scalable, and predictable application services. This White Paper describes the Evolution of load balancing devices to Application Delivery Controllers