In today’s highly competitive IT world, IT business continuity is a key element to keep businesses competitive. With the cloud revolution, businesses are now able to centrally host resources so they are accessible by any remote device 24/7. In the cloud environment, business continuity becomes a mandatory requirement. For instance, the Delta Air Lines outage […]
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F5 Networks, Inc. today introduced a BIG-IP® virtual edition for AWS, which leverages F5’s complete portfolio of BIG-IP products for the AWS cloud. This announcement addresses organizations’ escalating demand to extend their data center and applications to AWS, maintaining enterprise-class reliability, scale, security, and performance. F5’s new AWS offering is also the featured attraction at the company’s booth (#506) at the AWS re: Invent conference at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, November 27–29.
“Enterprise customers have come to rely on BIG-IP’s strategic awareness that provides important information on how applications, resources, and users interact in order to successfully deliver applications,” said Siva Mandalam, Director of Product Management and Product Marketing, Cloud and Virtualization Solutions at F5. “Since BIG-IP for AWS will have equivalent features to physical BIG-IP devices, customers can apply the same level of control for their applications in AWS. With BIG-IP running in enterprise data centers and on AWS, customers can establish secure tunnels, burst to the cloud, and control the application from end to end.”
The BIG-IP solution for AWS includes options for traffic management, global server load balancing, application firewall, web application acceleration, and other advanced application delivery functions. With the new F5 offering:
Supporting Facts and Quotes
“As enterprises consider which applications to move to the cloud, many customers have asked for the same advanced application control they have in their local data centers,” said Terry Wise, Head of Worldwide Partner Ecosystem at Amazon Web Services. “The BIG-IP solution for AWS enables enterprises to quickly move complex applications to AWS while maintaining high levels of service at a lower overall cost.”
“Enterprises want the flexibility and scale of cloud services, yet they can struggle with application complexity and sufficient control,” said Rohit Mehra, VP of Network Infrastructure at IDC. “The challenge lies in easily expanding IT’s service portfolio with cloud and hybrid capabilities while keeping the applications fast, secure, and available. BIG-IP’s native availability inside Amazon Web Services allows enterprises to deeply embed a strategic awareness of how applications behave in cloud adoption scenarios.”
To learn more about how F5 enables organizations to realize the full potential of cloud computing, visit F5 (booth #506) at the AWS re: Invent conference. During the event, Siva Mandalam from F5 will deliver a presentation focused on “Optimizing Enterprise Applications and User Access in the Cloud” at 1 p.m. PT on Wednesday, November 28.
Netflix has moved its Eureka mid-tier load-balancing tool, formerly known as the Netflix Discovery Service, to open source.
From the Netflix announcement of the move:
Eureka is a REST based service that is primarily used in the AWS cloud for locating services for the purpose of load balancing and failover of middle-tier servers. We call this service, the Eureka Server. Eureka also comes with a java-based client component, the Eureka Client, which makes interactions with the service much easier. The client also has a built-in load balancer that does basic round-robin load balancing. At Netflix, a much more sophisticated load balancer wraps Eureka to provide weighted load balancing based on several factors like traffic, resource usage, error conditions etc to provide superior resiliency. We have previously referred to Eureka as the Netflix discovery service.
#F5TCP #interop You are now. Introducing the F5 Technical Certification Program.
Can you explain the role of the Cache-Control HTTP header? How about the operational flow of data during an SMTP authentication exchange? Are you well-versed in the anatomy of an SSL handshake and the implications of encrypting data as it flows across the network?
Can you explain the features and functionalities of protocols and technologies specific to the Transport layer?
If so, then you won’t need to study nearly as much as many of your compatriots when you take the test to become an F5 Certified™ professional.
F5 Certified™ individuals represent a new breed of technologist – capable of manipulating the entire application stack from the traditional networking knowledge all the way to advanced application-layer understanding with a unique capability to integrate the two. Never before has any company created a program designed to bridge these worlds; a capability critical to the increasingly mobile and cloud-based solutions being implemented around the world today.
The need has always existed, but with the increasing focus on the abstraction of infrastructure through cloud computing and virtualization the need is greater today than ever for basic application delivery skills. Consider that at the heart of the elasticity promised by cloud computing is load balancing, and yet there is no general course or certification program through which a basic understanding of the technology can be achieved. There are no university courses in application delivery, no well-defined 
learning paths for new hires, no standard skills assessments. Vendors traditionally provide training but it is focused on product, not technology or general knowledge, leaving employees with highly specific skills that are not necessarily transferrable. This makes the transition to cloud more difficult as organizations struggle with integrating disparate application delivery technologies to ensure an operationally consistent environment without compromising on security or performance.
The F5-TCP focuses on both basic application delivery knowledge as well as a learning path through its application delivery products.
Starting with a core foundation in application delivery fundamentals, F5 Certified™ individuals will be able to focus on specific application delivery tracks through a well-defined learning path that leads to application delivery mastery.
Fundamentals being what they are – fundamental – the first step is to build a strong foundation in the technologies required to deploy and manage application delivery regardless of vendor or environment. Understanding core concepts such as the entire OSI model – including the impact of transport and application layer protocols and technologies on the network – is an invaluable skill today given the increasing focus on these layers over others when moving to highly virtualized and cloud computing environments.
As technologies continue to put pressure on IT to integrate more devices, more applications, and more environments, the application delivery tier becomes more critical to the ability of organizations not just to successfully integrate the technology, but to manage it, secure it, and deliver it in an operationally efficient way. Doing that requires skills; skills that IT organizations often lack. With no strong foundation in how to leverage such technology, it makes sense that organizations are simply not seeing the benefits of application delivery they could if they were able to fully take advantage of it.
Application delivery solutions are often underutilized and not well-understood in many IT organizations. According to research by Gartner, up to three-quarters of IT organizations that have deployed advanced application delivery controllers (ADCs) use them only for basic load balancing. When faced with performance or availability challenges, these organizations often overlook the already-deployed ADC, because it was purchased to solve basic server load balancing and is typically controlled by the network operations team.
— Gartner: Three Phases to Improve Application Delivery Teams
F5 is excited to embark on this effort and provide not just a “BIG-IP” certification, but the fundamental skills and knowledge necessary for organizations to incorporate application delivery as a first class citizen in its data center architecture and fully realize the benefits of application delivery.
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F5 Networks, Inc is demonstrating its F5 BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud deployments at the Microsoft Management Summit 2012, held this week in Las Vegas. During the event, F5 is emphasizing BIG-IP compatibility with System Center 2012 to help organizations maximize cloud benefits and productivity.
“F5 cloud computing solutions provide customers with a flexible foundation to dynamically provision services and tap the full value of cloud deployments,” says Calvin Rowland, VP, Technology and ISV Alliances at F5. “We’re excited to connect with customers at this event and share our cloud vision and products, which are key building blocks for private cloud environments. For over a decade, F5 and Microsoft have worked together to bring superior IT solutions to our customers. And with our close collaboration on Microsoft private cloud solutions, we’ve extended the value of this relationship.”
Using the BIG-IP system, customers can build dynamic data centers that eliminate deployment barriers and lay the framework for long-term, sustained efficiencies. For the Microsoft private cloud, F5 solutions help organizations unify their network architectures and consolidate their management environments. Together, BIG-IP products and System Center 2012 provide a clear view into how applications are performing over the network. This gives customers the ability to update and optimize configurations to increase performance, scale, automation, flexibility, and security.
Further, the updated F5® Monitoring Pack for System Center helps customers optimize resource utilization by discovering available BIG-IP devices and surfacing health statistics within System Center 2012. As administrators shift the allocation of resources, the BIG-IP system is automatically updated to ensure that the network is in sync with changes to computing and storage resources.
“System Center 2012 enables the private cloud, and the F5 Monitoring Pack for System Center gives customers the added strengths of F5’s BIG-IP solutions,” said Mike Schutz, General Manager, Product Marketing, Windows Server and Management at Microsoft. “Customers need the key components of their private cloud infrastructure to work well with each other, and the deep compatibility of System Center 2012 with F5’s BIG-IP platform can help increase efficiency and reliability while helping reduce operational expenses.”
Cost Effective, Automated, Flexible Cloud Control
BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud take advantage of key features and technologies in BIG-IP version 11.1, including F5’s virtual Clustered MultiprocessingTM (vCMP™) technology, iControl®, F5’s web services-enabled open application programming interface (API), administrative partitioning and server name indication (SNI). Together, these features help reduce the cost and complexity of managing cloud infrastructures in multi-tenant environments. With BIG-IP v11.1, organizations reap the maximum benefits of conducting IT operations and application delivery services in the private cloud.
BIG-IP solutions for Microsoft private cloud also include:
Availability
The F5 Monitoring Pack for System Center and the F5 PRO-enabled Monitoring Pack for System Center are now available. The F5 Load Balancing Provider for System Center is available as a free download from the F5 DevCentral website. The Orchestrator component of System Center 2012 is based on F5 iControl and Windows PowerShell, and is also free.
F5 Certification Site
More information on F5-TCP