The issue with load balancers is that they are all the same. I would rate it seven. I do not recall VMWare Avi Load Balancer having WAF protection. We use WAF and for this specific case, we use F5. It is not about VMWare Avi Load Balancer itself. For multi-cloud capability, you need to do NSX Extended and HCX in VMware. This is what will give you the flavor of multi-cloud. Others will be resources because once you reach NSX Extended, all resources will be under one cloud management. So it does not matter. It is not a feature in VMWare Avi Load Balancer that would be responsible for multi-cloud capability. Multi-cloud capability comes from a configuration called NSX Extended. It is very expensive. The pricing is expensive in that it is only an add-on. From my opinion, they should lower the price.
When it comes to improvements for VMWare Avi Load Balancer, I think the documentation part needs a bit of work. The original documentation which was on the Avi Vantage website in the good old days was really rich documentation. The documentation needs to improve, as it was really handy a couple of years back. Apart from the documentation for VMWare Avi Load Balancer, I think a bit more on the GSLB part can be improved, and maybe something additional into the monitoring side of the solution.
The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective. The product does not provide deep troubleshooting features. The solution must provide public IP features. F5 provides such features.
Avi Networks Software Load Balancer needs to improve its documentation. If there is no documentation in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer, we need to search for a new trainer, for which we spend time searching and contacting trainers via websites.
SASE - Anywhere Workspace Specialist at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Jun 21, 2022
One struggle with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its integration with other VMware products. Integration could be improved in the solution so that you have a more unified control plane with it and other data center security and networking products that VMware sells. There has been a bit of a lag on the roadmap of new features that have come out there recently, but better interoperability with the hyperscale environments such as the AWS, Azure, GCPs of the world, and simpler deployment and interoperability with those existing tools, are areas that are receiving attention and could use additional attention today. These are the areas for improvement in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer. What I'd like to see in the next release of the product is further extension into service-managed capabilities, particularly for Kubernetes environments. That's going to be a big player. Some pretty cutting-edge API security capabilities are being built into Avi Networks Software Load Balancer that are covering big tag vectors that people will continue to see when scaling out microservices applications. Those are also going to be big players moving forward and differentiators for the platform.
Senior Network and Security Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Apr 13, 2020
I really liked Avi Networks, but we are looking for more secure stuff. After downloading the report from IT Central Station, I spoke to the account manager of Avi Networks in the Middle East, and he said that they are selling the module we need as a separate product. I didn't want it because I don't want to have product upon product for each and every functionality. I work for a major municipality and the whole our infrastructure runs on F5. We have close to eight F5s, the bigger boxes. F5 has a product called APM and that is not in the box with Avi Networks; you need to buy another product. I wish they included everything in one box because that's how we buy a product, especially an application load balancer. Everybody has to compete with the market leader and F5 is the market leader. But F5 is very expensive and that's why everybody wants to go to the cheaper load balancers. But to do that the competition has to include all the functionalities of F5. Avi Networks is great. It could be good for a small company, but for the whole municipality, it's just not good enough. Avi Networks could put all the modules of F5, which are available in their hardware box, inside the software. They shouldn't sell the products separately. I would say 90 percent of the people in the Middle won't buy it. I know the government sector, and they wouldn't buy it. For example, if you have a washing and the dryer comes separately, you're not going to buy it. The washing machine is great. It does great washing, but you have to buy another apparatus for drying. That just wouldn't work. With Avi Networks you have to accommodate the extra product in the data center. Of course, they say that they are all virtual, all software-based, but there is still a lot of software integrations and connectivity that are required. Avi Networks is something I really wanted to go with and try because our F5 is a million-dollar-plus contract. Two of our F5s are going out of support, end-of-life. I really thought we could change it but for now, we cannot. If Avi Networks could bundle everything as one...
VMWare Avi Load Balancer is designed for seamless integration with host environments, providing a user-friendly interface, stable deployment, scalability, and reliable performance.VMWare Avi Load Balancer offers a potent combination of advanced traffic management, application delivery, and network visualization tools tailored for cloud and modern infrastructures. Its core functionalities revolve around a robust web application firewall and comprehensive analytics, which make it a strong...
The issue with load balancers is that they are all the same. I would rate it seven. I do not recall VMWare Avi Load Balancer having WAF protection. We use WAF and for this specific case, we use F5. It is not about VMWare Avi Load Balancer itself. For multi-cloud capability, you need to do NSX Extended and HCX in VMware. This is what will give you the flavor of multi-cloud. Others will be resources because once you reach NSX Extended, all resources will be under one cloud management. So it does not matter. It is not a feature in VMWare Avi Load Balancer that would be responsible for multi-cloud capability. Multi-cloud capability comes from a configuration called NSX Extended. It is very expensive. The pricing is expensive in that it is only an add-on. From my opinion, they should lower the price.
When it comes to improvements for VMWare Avi Load Balancer, I think the documentation part needs a bit of work. The original documentation which was on the Avi Vantage website in the good old days was really rich documentation. The documentation needs to improve, as it was really handy a couple of years back. Apart from the documentation for VMWare Avi Load Balancer, I think a bit more on the GSLB part can be improved, and maybe something additional into the monitoring side of the solution.
The network analytics and monitoring features are not effective. The product does not provide deep troubleshooting features. The solution must provide public IP features. F5 provides such features.
Avi Networks Software Load Balancer needs to improve its documentation. If there is no documentation in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer, we need to search for a new trainer, for which we spend time searching and contacting trainers via websites.
I'm not sure if there is a particular area that needs improvement. The initial setup is a bit complex.
The product could be improved in terms of security features. For example, IDS and IPS sites need to be more progressive.
One struggle with Avi Networks Software Load Balancer is its integration with other VMware products. Integration could be improved in the solution so that you have a more unified control plane with it and other data center security and networking products that VMware sells. There has been a bit of a lag on the roadmap of new features that have come out there recently, but better interoperability with the hyperscale environments such as the AWS, Azure, GCPs of the world, and simpler deployment and interoperability with those existing tools, are areas that are receiving attention and could use additional attention today. These are the areas for improvement in Avi Networks Software Load Balancer. What I'd like to see in the next release of the product is further extension into service-managed capabilities, particularly for Kubernetes environments. That's going to be a big player. Some pretty cutting-edge API security capabilities are being built into Avi Networks Software Load Balancer that are covering big tag vectors that people will continue to see when scaling out microservices applications. Those are also going to be big players moving forward and differentiators for the platform.
I really liked Avi Networks, but we are looking for more secure stuff. After downloading the report from IT Central Station, I spoke to the account manager of Avi Networks in the Middle East, and he said that they are selling the module we need as a separate product. I didn't want it because I don't want to have product upon product for each and every functionality. I work for a major municipality and the whole our infrastructure runs on F5. We have close to eight F5s, the bigger boxes. F5 has a product called APM and that is not in the box with Avi Networks; you need to buy another product. I wish they included everything in one box because that's how we buy a product, especially an application load balancer. Everybody has to compete with the market leader and F5 is the market leader. But F5 is very expensive and that's why everybody wants to go to the cheaper load balancers. But to do that the competition has to include all the functionalities of F5. Avi Networks is great. It could be good for a small company, but for the whole municipality, it's just not good enough. Avi Networks could put all the modules of F5, which are available in their hardware box, inside the software. They shouldn't sell the products separately. I would say 90 percent of the people in the Middle won't buy it. I know the government sector, and they wouldn't buy it. For example, if you have a washing and the dryer comes separately, you're not going to buy it. The washing machine is great. It does great washing, but you have to buy another apparatus for drying. That just wouldn't work. With Avi Networks you have to accommodate the extra product in the data center. Of course, they say that they are all virtual, all software-based, but there is still a lot of software integrations and connectivity that are required. Avi Networks is something I really wanted to go with and try because our F5 is a million-dollar-plus contract. Two of our F5s are going out of support, end-of-life. I really thought we could change it but for now, we cannot. If Avi Networks could bundle everything as one...
In terms of improvement, the pricing and documentation need improvement. We have had problems getting the documents.