Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 38 | Page 61

CASE STUDY What F5 technology do you currently have in place? ADJD is running the F5 VIPRION platform equipped with BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager to simplify, automate and customise application delivery. We are also using F5’s Silverline Web Application Firewall service. This provides a WAF implementation and unified, scalable policy enforcement capabilities. The service also includes 24x7 support from highly specialised F5 security experts with the company’s Security Operations Center (SOC) resources. In addition, the project features F5’s Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing, the industry’s first purpose-built hypervisor, allowing the complete segmentation of purpose-built, scalable resources into independent, virtual ADCs. What have been the major benefits of the solution (The F5 VIPRION platform equipped with BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager)? The F5 VIPRION platform is equipped with BIG-IP LTM to simplify, automate, and customise application delivery to ensure greater security, availability and quality of service. Essentially, BIG-IP LTM gives us an in-depth understanding of our network’s application traffic and comprehensive control over how it’s handled. It enables the transformation of chaotic volumes of network traffic into logically assembled streams of data. This allows us to make intelligent traffic management decisions, selecting the right destination based on server performance, security and availability. Because BIG-IP LTM is a full proxy, it means we can inspect, manage, and report on application traffic both entering and exiting the network to achieve a new level of granular control. For example, if we want to direct traffic based on the requested URL, or log specific server responses to a reporting system, BIG- IP LTM has the architecture and the tools to do so. www.intelligentcio.com THE PROJECT FEATURES F5’S VIRTUAL CLUSTERED MULTIPROCESSING, THE INDUSTRY’S FIRST PURPOSE- BUILT HYPERVISOR, BIG-IP LTM can also optimise the speed and reliability of our applications via both the network and application layers. Using real-time protocol and traffic management decisions based on application and server conditions, extensive connection management, and TCP and content offloading, BIG-IP LTM dramatically improves page load times and overall user experience. How has the solution allowed you to improve the performance of your key applications? BIG-IP LTM allows us to improve the performance of our applications by reducing traffic volume and minimising bottlenecks by dividing the huge traffic into a controlled stream. The solution gives us comprehensive load balancing, application health monitoring, high availability and transaction assurance. Other benefits include: • Automating and customising with programmable infrastructure: we can control our applications – from connection and traffic to configuration and management – with F5 iRules LX, the next stage of evolution for network programmability that brings Node.js language support to the BIG-IP platform • Transitioning to SDN and cloud networks: BIG-IP LTM has the capability to realise operational consistency and comply with business needs across physical, virtual and cloud environments with deployment flexibility and scalability • Easily deploying and managing applications: user-defined F5 iApps BIG IP LTM’s templates make it easy to deploy, manage and get complete visibility into our applications • Securing critical applications app protection via industry-leading SSL performance and visibility What are the main benefits of F5’s Silverline Web Application Firewall Service? As security attacks across traditional and cloud environments become more sophisticated, our in-house security teams must stay up to date on the latest attacks and protection measures, as well as deliver consistent policies and compliance across environments. A lack of consistency can result in security vulnerabilities, higher expenses, and a slower response to threats and compliance issues. F5 Silverline Web Application Firewall is a cloud-based service with 24x7x365 support from highly specialised security experts. It helps us protect web applications and data and enable compliance with industry security standards. Key benefits include: • Application security and compliance: comprehensive protection from advanced layer seven attacks, OWASP Top 10 application security risks and zero-day attacks. The solution also helps ensure compliance with key regulatory mandates • Identification and mitigation of malicious bots that bypass standard detection methods • Mitigations that learn and adapt to unique application-layer user interaction patterns, enabling dynamic defences based on changing conditions • Consistent web application security, availability, and user experience across traditional data centres and multi-cloud • Expert support on tap: We receive 24x7x365 access to WAF experts who build, proactively monitor, and fine-tune policies against known and emerging threats. Access real-time attack data and reports through the cloud-based customer portal and incorporate external intelligence to secure apps against identified threats INTELLIGENTCIO 61