Tuesday October 17, 7:07 am Eastern Time
Press Release
F5 Networks Smashes the Performance Barrier for
Layer 7 Traffic Management
BIG-IP® Enterprise Controller v3.3 with FastFlow Architecture Delivers Leadership Performance
to Intelligently Manage Traffic in Business-Critical Web Sites
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 17, 2000-- F5 Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FFIV - news), the leading provider of Internet
traffic and content management (iTCM) products, today announced that BIG-IP® Enterprise v3.3 has set a new performance
standard for intelligently managing traffic to web servers and caches based on Layer 7 information.
Deployed either as a standalone or integrated with F5's other leading iTCM products, BIG-IP delivers the highest throughput with
more granular traffic control than any other product in its class, based on published data.
The new BIG-IP Enterprise v3.3 introduces FastFlow software architecture, increasing performance and providing a smooth
transition to multi-processing features for future BIG-IP Enterprise releases. Platform hardware enhancements provide further
performance gains in session rate and network bandwidth. Together these improvements enable BIG-IP Enterprise v3.3 to deliver
up to three times greater throughput than previous versions of BIG-IP.
``Establishing an impeccable first impression and delivering the highest quality of service to our clients are vital to our business,
which is centered around delivering reward and loyalty functionality to our clients,'' said Mike Thorpe, from the Technical
Operations Group at Rewardstream. ``The BIG-IP Controller helps Rewardstream to ensure that our applications and the right
content are always available to our clients. We plan to continue to leverage the BIG-IP Controller's advanced Layer 7 capabilities,
like Cookie persistence, in order to continue to differentiate our services.''
Smashing the Layer 7 Performance Barrier
BIG-IP Enterprise v3.3 is capable of processing over 17,000 HTTP requests per second based on Layer 7 decisions. These
requests are independent web switching decisions based on Layer 7 information such as URL, cookies, browser type, or language.
BIG-IP Enterprise performance at Layer 7 is nearly three times greater than published data for Alteon's Ace Director 3 (6,300
HTTP 1.0 requests/sec)(a), and nearly four times greater than Arrowpoint's CS-150 (4,400 HTTP 1.0 requests/sec)(b).
Supporting over 1.4 billion connections per day, BIG-IP Enterprise can saturate a gigabit up-link with a rich set of Layer 7 features
enabled.
The Performance Facts
Vendor performance claims of Layer 7 performance can be confusing. Performance claims based on HTTP 1.1 measurements
can be used to artificially inflate measured throughput. For example, in one vendor's performance claim using HTTP 1.1, each
client made 20 requests for the same URL and all requests were directed to the same server. While this approach yields good
performance, it can hardly be considered a real world measure of Layer 7 throughput. Comparative performance measurements
at Layer 7 require that each request is independently processed and that these requests are directed to multiple servers. This can
easily be accomplished by measuring either HTTP 1.0 performance or by forcing a single request per connection by disabling
``keep-alives'' when using HTTP 1.1.
The performance impact of enabling true Layer 7 switching in competing products can be disastrous. Products that focus on
Layer 4 switching can see up to 80% performance degradation when Layer 7 features are enabled. BIG-IP offers consistent
performance at Layer 4 and Layer 7, enabling customers to manage their web sites without worrying about performance
degradation. ``This huge difference between BIG-IP and its competitors reflects how F5's expertise at application layer
management is paying off for customers,'' said John McAdam, president and CEO of F5 Networks.
Other vendor's products often require customers to selectively enable Layer 7 features and to accept limitations on Layer 7
processing. BIG-IP enables the use of all Layer 7 features simultaneously without imposing limitations on the length of the URL,
cookie, or location of cookie. ``The bottom-line is that BIG-IP's unique handling of Layer 7 switching addresses the performance
needs of customers like no one else. Others may claim impressive statistics but they just don't match BIG-IP when deployed to
manage real-world applications,'' McAdam said.
The Importance of Layer 7 (Application Information) Compared to Layer 4.
Vendor claims of high connection rates can be misleading unless a customer understands the difference between Layer 4 and
Layer 7 switching. Examining traffic at Layer 7 allows the most intelligent quality of service (QoS), routing and management
decisions to be made based on application information. Layer 4 switching only provides basic traffic direction. For example, a
financial institution may have multiple web-based applications that can be accessed by different user groups. Managing these
specific user groups and their associated applications requires Layer 7 information, and is very different from simply directing
``generic'' user traffic to general-purpose web servers based on simple Layer 4 information.
BIG-IP's unique Layer 7 switching capability enables the successful delivery of business critical applications for 7x24 availability,
scalability and high performance. Devices whose capabilities focus on Layer 4 are blind to application information, so they treat all
traffic the same without regard to the sophisticated Service Level Agreements and QoS requirements that businesses need to
enforce. ``In fact, BIG-IP is the traffic management product of choice for over 30 financial institutions worldwide. Once again,
customers have voted for BIG-IP as the winner in performance and QoS when it comes to Layer 7 switching,'' McAdam said.
Pricing and Availability
BIG-IP Enterprise prices range from $27,250 to $47,250. Other BIG-IP products are priced from $9,990. BIG-IP Enterprise v3.3
with the new platform enhancements will be available beginning next month.
Kurs zieht heute auch schön an.
Gruß Dampf |
Thread abonnieren
