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Education · March 4, 2021

Why is the F5 BIG-IP LTM considered the Best Load Balancer?

The online platforms are aimed to provide the best user experiences to achieve the goals of being the best application. Transferring data from data centres to cloud and from clouds to users is a complex process and any lack in this may lead to the breaking down of the network and even the security of the data can come to the stake.

Here the F5 BIG-IP LTM can be considered an option to resolve the issues by providing load balancing services.

An overview of Load Balancer

A very fundamental device needed to manage website traffic. This eventually helps in diverting the traffic to different servers to avoid any load on a single server. Typically saying, it is a reverse proxy device that is installed just after the firewall and works to divert the requests coming onto the servers.

The use of a Load balancer is mainly to divert the network reaching request that consequently helps the application to perform better, smoother and faster for the users.

The load balancers are commonly found in two categories, one is 4-layer and another is 7-layer.

Where, 4 layer load balancers function on the data found in the network and work on transporting layer protocols like IP, TCP, FTP, UDP.

And, on other hand, 7 layer load balancer checks on data found in application layer protocol like HTTP and distributes the requests accordingly.

Although both the layer load balancer works to divert the server load yet, 7 layer load balancer distributes and diverts data based on application-specific details as well, like HTTP headers, cookies and etc.

What is F5 & F5 LTM?

F5 or F5 Inc. is an American based company that provides several products for the support and better performance of applications and its networks. To date, the company has introduced many products supporting the convenient user experience of application usage. The company started its journey with the service of Load balancer which was later added with security and DDoS services and products for defence in applications.

While talking about the F5 LTM, it is a product by F5 that is mainly to provide the service for Load Balancing. The product belongs to the BIG-IP category and is the 7 layer load balancer. It contributes to distributing the requests on servers and passes them ahead on the basis of whether the application is ready to respond to the request or not.

What’s special in BIG-IP F5 LTM?

There are many factors that could be the reason which made F5 BIG-IP LTM be counted in the list of top most load balancer service providers. Some of them are listed below:-

  • Smart approval of requests: the load balancer does not allow every request to pass on, the customizations are available and it also has a check on the time and state of the application to respond to the request.
  • Accelerates the speed of application load: by the use of network and application layers both. It also includes TCP and content offloading for the same.
  • SSL acceleration: this helps to protect the network by encrypting everything from end-to-end in the servers. Also helps to avoid DDos attacks and blocks bad traffic from passing.
  • Complete proxy: the distribution of requests are sensible and made to minimize the effect on a single server alone.

The list includes more like TCP optimization, programmability, scaling and speeding, and more.

Can BIG-IP F5 LTM work as a career option?

Anything that has its importance in dealing, maintaining and managing with the online world, has the scope to make a career in.

The same happens with the F5 product, BIG-IP LTM load balancer. Since the product has many complex core concepts to be understood thoroughly before handling the products in the real environment. As a result, the need for professionals originates in the Industry exponentially.

The professionals are those who have gained the F5 LTM Load Balancer training or have hands-on experience on the same. However, F5 LTM training courses provide hands-on experience in virtual labs and the situations are created the same as any real-time project will have to develop the troubleshooting skills in the candidate.

Gaining skills through an F5 training course or gaining experience through real-time projects can help you find a better job with a better salary.