BIG-IP ®

v9 Series Datasheet
BIG-IP Load Balancer Limited

BIG-IP Load Balancer Limited

BIG-IP Load Balancer Limited provides organizations with basic and cost-effective
L4 load balancing capabilities to deliver dramatically improved application scalability,
high availability and performance across multiple servers, firewalls, and many other
devices.

Key Benefits
BIG-IP Performance
Load Balancing Application High Availability
Provides high availability and scalability to As organizations continue to Web-enable their e-mail, CRM, HR, Financial and other
any Web-enabled application, Web server, applications, they place a greater reliance on the availability of those applications.
or firewall deployment. BIG-IP Load Balancer Limited ensures users are sent to applications that are running
properly regardless of expected or unexpected outages at the network, server or
Health Monitoring application level – ensuring high availability and eliminating downtime.
Ensures users are sent to applications that
are running properly regardless of expected Maximizes Your Investments
or unexpected outage at the network, server
Upgrading to high capacity servers to meet new application demands is expensive,
has finite scalability, and does not ensure availability. BIG-IP enables scaling by load
or application level.
balancing low-cost servers so they perform better, eliminating the need to purchase
more hardware or software than necessary.
Better Performance
Virtualizes low cost server resources so they Maximum Site Uptime and Control
perform better; allows servers and BIG-IP Load Balancer Limited provides high availability and scalability to any Web
applications to respond in a timely and server or firewall deployment, automatically routing user requests to the most available
expected fashion. server that can best handle them and ensuring optimal Quality of Service for users.

Reduced Cost Multiple Load Balancing Methods

Eliminates the need for additional and BIG-IP lets organizations distribute traffic based on specific needs.
expensive hardware, software or IT resources. • Fastest: Passes user connection to available server that responds the fastest
• Round Robin: Sends traffic to the next available server in a predetermined sequence
Persistence • Least Connections: Connects the user to the server with the least number of
Provides two persistence modes (source and current connections
destination address) for maintaining sticky • Ratio: Performs ‘ratios’ on the server that best fits the request, according to a
connections to servers. system that assigns weights for various factors, such as server capacity.

Security Improves Operational Efficiencies

Provides robust security to filter out the BIG-IP consolidates and supports traffic management, security and performance
heaviest attacks while simultaneously optimization functions on a single platform, and allows you to eliminate the complexity,
delivering uninterrupted service for legitimate cost and hassle of adding another single function point solution into the network.
connections.
Failover Protection
BIG-IP ensures that stateful sessions are maintained between redundant systems,
Advanced GUI protecting your resources. BIG-IP supports both Serial and/or Network Failover.
Simplified management and easy-to-use
configuration wizards guide administrators
step by step, reducing management, set-up
time, and ongoing maintenance costs.
BIG-IP Security
Heightened Network Security
No other low-cost load balancing product offers as many security features as BIG-IP
Monitoring
Load Balancer Limited. It heightens network security while providing added protection
Offers real-time performance monitoring
to servers and devices against cyber attacks through Default Deny, IP Address checking
(state) and statistics. and port mapping, NAT, SNAT (Secure Network Address Translation) and complete
SSL/SSH management.

Protects Against Heavy Attack Volumes

BIG-IP provides comprehensive SYN Flood protection of the servers that sit behind the
BIG-IP device. BIG-IP acts as a security proxy that is designed to protect the entire
network. Combined with its Dynamic Reaping capabilities, an adaptive method for
reaping idle connections, BIG-IP provides robust security to filter out the heaviest
attacks while simultaneously delivering uninterrupted service for legitimate connections.
 New GUI and Simplified Management Fast Traffic Management
A new, advanced GUI delivers extremely simple product Delivers a fast, unified application traffic management solution,
configuration that lowers setup and ongoing maintenance costs. with a special architecture that gives customers real-world
performance at network speeds, allowing the successful and
secure delivery of their applications.

Better Visibility
BIG-IP’s LCD display enables basic device management and better
visibility for administrating F5 devices from within the data center,
allowing organizations to avoid accidental outages and save time
in managing F5 solutions.

Available Add-On Modules

IPv6 Gateway Module
Provides complete IP transformation and load balancing capabilities
between v4 and v6 networks. Makes user migration and the
pooling of mixed IPv4 and IPv6 host resources manageable, cost-
effective and possible.

Routing Modules
Individual networking routing modules for BGP, RIP, and OSPF,
Rich User Interface respectively.
BIG-IP’s new GUI provides numerous usability enhancements,
including online help, searching and sorting, in-line creation and
much more – dramatically reducing the time spent dealing with Product Specifications
setup and maintenance for larger configurations.
BIG-IP Load Balancer Limited is available on the new 1500 series
platform. The software modules listed above can be quickly
System HA and Management
added upon demand.
BIG-IP delivers advanced system management through critical
features such as warm upgrades and lights out management. As
a high availability device, BIG-IP also provides unmatched visibility
into the status of all processes running under the “HA table.”

Enhanced Transparent Device Monitors

Administrators can now configure how many monitors must be
up at one time to consider a source available. This provides BIG-IP LBL – Powerful Multi-Purpose Traffic Management
improved granularity and control for firewall checking.
• 1U Height – New USB Port, LCD Display & Keypad
• Single CPU
• 4 10/100/1000 Copper Ethernet Ports
A New Powerful Platform • 2 Optional Gigabit Fiber Ports
High Performance, Low Cost Switch
• Hard Drive
F5’s specially designed architecture marries the latest in
Ethernet switching technology with high performance and • Integrated Management Computer (lights-out management)
robust processing capabilities. The result is an ultra-reliable, cost- • Up to 2 GB of system memory
effective, highly adaptable and intelligent platform to meet any
application demand.

About F5
F5 enables organizations to successfully deliver business-critical applications and gives them the greatest level of agility to stay ahead of growing business
demands. As the pioneer and global leader in Application Traffic Management, F5 continues to lead the industry by driving more intelligence into the
Part No. DS-BIG-IP LBL 0305

network to deliver advanced application agility.

F5 Networks, Inc. F5 Networks F5 Networks Ltd F5 Networks

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www.f5.com
info@f5.com
© 2004 F5 Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. F5, F5 Networks, the F5 logo, BIG-IP, 3-DNS, FirePass, TrafficShield, iControl are trademarks or registered trademarks of F5 Networks, Inc. in the U.S. and certain other countries.