F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) Reviews

In terms of our primary use cases - all our web services, our main web portals, and our TV service sit behind the F5, so any customer would have to traverse our F5 for the services at the back of it.

It serves our backend and front end services.

In terms of what could be improved, I would expect more integration with different platforms and more integration with the backend systems.

Additionally, in the next release, I would like a more secure version.

I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for about five years now.

In terms of stability, it is stable, but we have a regular update program because of the security vulnerabilities, meaning bugs. So it is an ongoing thing maintaining them.

It's a bit of an overhead at the moment.

In terms of how many users we have using it, for the end user, all our customers go through the F5, so they are using it in terms of service. In terms of our engineers and how many people use it, that depends. If you're deploying it or you're in operations, like I am, there are hundreds of engineers and internal users.

We have weekly calls with F5 directly. We used to go through a third party, but now we go directly to F5 for our support.

When you buy it you have a license bundle which I think you have to renew every year or every couple of years.

On a scale of one to ten, I would probably give F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a six.

I would give it a warm recommendation, I would not give it a glowing recommendation. I'd give it a warm, "Tread with caution."

iRules are very valuable. In addition to that, the way profiles are depicted by the LTM is also very good.

A lot of functions that are attributed to iRules can actually be simple profile changes. iRules do have a certain performance impact. Therefore, instead of writing simple iRules, they can create certain profiles for classes that will perform the same function.

Its scalability and pricing can also be improved.

I have been using this solution for more than 12 years. We are currently using version 15.1.2. The latest one is 16.0, but we are still evaluating it.

It is very stable.

It is not scalable. It is a licensed product. They are coming up with some scalable options, but for existing products, throughput is limited. Currently, if you have a 200 Mbps license, then it can go to a maximum of 200 Mbps. If you want it to go further than that, then you have to buy a new license.

Their technical support is good.

I've been working for 12 years, and F5 was the first LTM product. In addition to F5, I've also worked on Citrix NetScaler, Load Balancer, Kemp, and Cisco ACE (no longer in service). I prefer F5 over all of them.

Its initial setup is very easy. The biggest advantage that F5 has is that its initial setup is very simple.

It is quite expensive as a product. Because it is very stable, it is also expensive.

For mission-critical applications, you can trust F5 with any of your load balancing functions. However, if you have a UAT environment or a test setup, it won't be suitable because it is a pricey product. You can then go for an open-source product or any software with load balancers. VMware has recently come up with AVI load balancers.

I would rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) an eight out of 10.

I primarily use F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for server load balancing and SSL offloading. The tool helps offload the SSL processes instead of having the servers handle it. Additionally, we use the Web Application Firewall (WAF) application for protecting our servers.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) has improved our organization's performance by increasing the uptime of our applications. By including redundancies for applications, the traffic is balanced across multiple servers, which helps secure our processes.

The most valuable features of F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) are server load balancing and SSL offloading or termination. These features help protect our servers and improve application uptime.

While F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) is not a do-it-all solution, it has a feature called iRules that allows customization of the device's non-default functionality.

One improvement could be updating the user interface (UI).

I have never faced any stability issues with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM).

I do not have any complaints about scalability or technical issues with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM).

Customer service and support depend on prioritization. However, support is good and on par with other solutions. They follow their SLAs precisely to reach out to us based on the priority of the issue.

Positive

There are many competitors in the load balancing market. However, F5 has been a leader in load balancing solutions for many years. They offer a 'Swiss Army knife' approach with multiple functionalities like synchronization.

There are multiple solutions available in the market. I chose to work with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) due to its comprehensive features and leadership in the industry.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

The solution is used for deploying applications.

The most valuable feature of F5 BIG-IP LTM is the operating system. It is nicely designed and orchestrated. The solution has all the features that are necessary for medium to large-sized enterprises would need to ensure their application are available throughout the globe. The LTM and DTM features combined provide a great service to organizations for presenting around the world which includes load balancing. 

If there are any problems with the applications during integration they can be managed well with the solutions' ability to provide visibility.

The solution could improve the ease of use, the management could be simplified. Other solutions are easier to use.

I have been using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for approximately 15 years.

The stability of F5 BIG-IP LTM is great.

50 percent of my customers are using this solution.

F5 BIG-IP LTM is a scalable solution.

I have not needed technical support from F5 BIG-IP LTM.

If you are an expert in F5 BIG-IP LTM then the solution is simple to implement. If someone is new to implementing the solution it is difficult.

The length of time it takes to do the deployment depends on the size of the network it is being deployed in.

We do the implementation of the solution.

This solution comes with a standard license, and there are also extra licenses that can be obtained. The licenses are purchasable for durations of one, two, three, and five years. The hardware is something to consider when purchasing

I recommend this solution to my customers.

I rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a nine out of ten.

BIG-IP LTM is mainly used to load balance applications.

BIG-IP LTM's most valuable feature is that it allows you to seamlessly add more servers without impacting your application's configuration. It's also very flexible because you can use iRules to manipulate the traffic.

I've been using BIG-IP LTM for over ten years.

BIG-IP LTM is quite stable - sometimes there are security vulnerabilities, but they inform us when a patch is needed. 

BIG-IP LTM is scalable - once F5 is installed, you can keep adding servers behind it.

BIG-IP LTM's technical support is good - once you log a case with them, the support is quite prompt and responsive.

Positive

The initial setup can be complex - it's quite flexible in terms of configuration, but the person configuring it needs to understand the application side, the network side, and the server. The speed of deployment depends on the application requirement and the application deployment cycle.

BIG-IP LTM is considered a premium product, so it's quite expensive and isn't affordable for all customers. F5's licensing is based on modules, so there are separate charges depending on which features you want.

Before implementing BIG-IP LTM, you should understand your expectations and requirements, especially from the application team. Putting BIG-IP LTM into a not-so-critical environment would be very expensive, so you may want to consider more medium-range solutions that can do the same job. I would give BIG-IP LTM a rating of ten 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 to publicly deliver applications.

The capability is at a seven or eight out of ten.

In terms of native integrations, there is a lot of instability. Also, integration is not robust with F5.

We need a very large team to manage the solution. Had it been cloud native, it would have been very seamless, but because it's not cloud native, it does not integrate really well.

We've been using it for a few years.

It's a cloud solution.

From a scalability point of view, this solution is not really up to the mark. The on-demand requirements or on-demand scalability options are not good.

We have close to 5,000 applications hosted on F5 that are delivered.

The technical support is very poor. They do not deliver on their SLAs, and even when we escalate the issue, we do not get a good response in 24 hours.

The initial setup is straightforward. For a very basic, standard F5 setup, the best practices based deployment will work fine. However, for very large scale deployment models, the recommendations that come in from F5 may not really meet your requirements.

For a typical setup, you would like to mimic how it's been set up on-premises, but this is not the way you would set it up on the cloud. You will end up hitting limitations on the cloud, and you would have to rearchitect your overall design or configurations when you deploy it. As a result, the setup for the hybrid model is not straightforward.

We strongly recommend not to go with F5 when internal teams or verticals want to mimic the same architecture.

In terms of the capability, I would rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) at seven or eight, on a scale from one to ten, and in terms of scalability at four or five. Overall, I would rate it at six.

I am using F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager for load balancing. For example, I create the virtual server, and in there we have a pool and member server. This is used for simple load balancing.

We are using the on-premise and cloud versions of the solution.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager could improve by having an FNI feature for a single source to multi-domain load balancing.

When I was using the solution I was using the basic functions and I found it difficult to handle some of the more advanced features. I needed assistance from my IT department or the vendors themself. There should be more workshops are places to gain knowledge on how to use the solution. You need specific skill sets to use it.

I have used F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager(LTM) within the past 12 months.

F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is a stable and reliable solution.

Our whole IT department is using the solution with some application teams. We have approximately 50 people using the solution in the IT department.

When there is an issue it is first looked at by our internal team rather a ticket being opened directly with the vendor. I open the tickets to our internal team and if they cannot solve the issue, they will escalate to the vendor. The technical support from F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is good.

We did not do the implementation ourselves.

It is important to know how the solution works. For example, how to set up the interface, routing, pools, and the implementation steps. After the basic configurations, you will understand you may need or want to try to learn more of the features, such as the layers of the SNI. It is ideal to start with the very basic implementation first. We have been doing the day-to-day operation.

When it comes to troubleshooting, it is important to know how to isolate the problem, analyze it, and be fast to solve them when it appears.

I rate F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a six out of ten.