F5 BIG-IP software from Seattle-based F5 Networks is a load balancing and application protection solution suite available on cloud or via virtual editions, on a subscription or perpetual licensing basis.
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF leverages F5's Advanced WAF technology, delivering WAF-as-a-Service and combining signature- and behavior-based protection for web applications. It acts as an intermediate proxy to inspect application requests and responses to block and mitigate a broad spectrum of risks stemming from the OW ASP Top 10, persistent and coordinated threat campaigns, bots, and layer 7 DoS.
Definitely in larger environments, more mature organizations that obviously have the budget to spend and want best in class. Where it struggles is those organizations that don't have the funding and money to spend on it and need more basic functionality. So I'd say that's smaller customers we've worked with and kind of mid-market. They tend to get scared when they get the quotes. Also we've had some struggles with account team consistency. So for the sales team, just a lot of turnover and a lot of missteps on customer calls.
It is doing its job effectively, and its scalability is superb. So, if you have a mixed environment with cloud and on-premise systems to protect this product, provide a solution to the challenge. However, its management is more suited to DevOps teams rather than to the ones responsible for on-premise systems, making the management a bit more complex.
The great thing is the IP address management that's happening. When you set up the network it's very easy and you don't have to keep on configuring everything together. Again, it's very streamlined and it's one of the biggest players there in the market for this work.
Layer seven attacks are becoming far more common. Traditionally it was always layered three, layer four, where you get an additional firewall, but with the application layer attacks become more frequent, more popular, et cetera. So having the web application firewall protecting us, and then with the recent Log4j, that's the most recent use case when it gave us that instant level of protection whilst we remediated the Log4j that we had that and the F5 Distributed Cloud WAF was protecting us.
I have a great relationship with the account manager, my account manager, and I think he drives the best price possible, um, for me, and I'm happy with that price.
F5 Distributed Cloud WAF is always innovating and evolving.
We run a very competitive proof value where we run numerous competitors against each other, and then we evaluate from that and then make the selection, and F5 Distributed Cloud WAF was the winner.
Well, not necessarily the features. I find that we have to change our processes in order to kind of match what F5 BIG-IP does. And it's not a bad thing, it's just that a lot of my engineers want to do it their way, not they F5 BIG-IP way.
Fail over between devices feels unstable if there are thousands of objects attached to the traffic-group. Needs to be more simpler.
We have seen issues with malicious user detection where we have used open protocols due to legacy applications, and have been caught with legitimate traffic being blocked.
I would continue using F5 Distributed Cloud WAF because I am highly satisfied with its robust and comprehensive features that effectively protect our applications from evolving cyber threats. The advanced AI capabilities enhance threat detection and response, providing proactive security. Additionally, the excellent customer support ensures quick resolution of any issues, making the overall experience reliable and efficient. Trust in the manufacturer’s innovation and continuous updates further motivates me to keep this solution as a core part of our security infrastructure.
It's not difficult to understand the parts of application configurations and features. Setting up new virtual servers with multiple profiles, certificates, and nodes is easy for new users through the web interface, which also translates to programability in scripts, DevOps, or other configuration management use-cases. Users from different backgrounds such as networking and infrastructure can use F5 BIG-IP, while users who are familiar with API calls can easily configure objects without needing to understand the platform at all.
I believe is a solution that was designed from the start to be simple and easy to use. Coming from Imperva, it simply eased the burden and complexity of managing and securing our apps on different environments (cloud and on-prem). It easy to scale and very quick to deploy (as a cloud waf should be), provide us with DevOps integrations, visibility and automatic insights from multiple events that guarantee peace of mind for us analysts and opp managers.
On the occasions when we've had to engage f5 support, they have been great. They have always resolved our issues quickly and been easy to work with and professional. The reason I give them a 10 out of 10, however, is because when we've had issues that have crossed over between the f5 BIG-IP, our Cisco switches, and our Microsoft IIS server the f5 support representatives have been extremely knowledgeable about every product and device involved and have been able to troubleshoot end-to-end without having to engage other vendors.
This plaform has advanced threat detection technology and mitigation of this tool is also great that's why why it helps us in securing from many attacks including damages from 7 attcks, BOTS Mitigations and DDoS Protection. Also this plaform has customised security management policy to tailor security measures according to our specific needs.
I would say from a security perspective, because I manage security, availability is sort of the key area for us and making sure that is properly handled through BIG-IP, that is the biggest business success, I would say from the product perspective.
