F5 Networks, Inc. is a transnational company specializing in application services and application delivery networking (ADN). F5 technologies focus on the delivery, security, performance, and availability of web applications, including the availability of compute, storage, and networking resources. The company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with additional development, manufacturing and administration offices around the world.
| F5 Networks, Inc. | |
|---|---|
| State | United States |
| Company form | Public company |
| Foundation | 1996 |
| Headquarter | Seattle |
| Key people | François Locoh-Donou (President and CEO) |
| Sector | Computer science |
| Products | Networking |
| Website | http://www.f5.com/ |
F5’s offering was originally based on a load balancer product but has since expanded to include acceleration, application security, and DDoS defense. F5 technologies are available in data centers and cloud environments.
It is a member of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).
F5 history
F5 Networks, originally called F5 Labs, was founded in 1996.
In 1997, the company launched its first product a load balancer called BIG-IP. When a server stopped or became overloaded, BIG-IP routed traffic from that server to other servers that could handle the load.
On June 1999, the company had its initial public offering and was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange under the symbol FFIV.
In 2010 and 2011, F5 Networks was on Fortune’s list of the 100 fastest-growing companies. In 2010, the company was also ranked among the top ten best-performing stocks by S&P 500. It was also named the best place to work for online jobs and recruitment site Glassdoor in 2015 and 2016.
Among competitors were Cisco Systems (until 2012), Citrix Systems and Radware.
François Locoh-Donou replaced John McAdam as President and CEO on April 3, 2017.
On May 3, 2017, F5 announced that it would move from its waterfront headquarters near downtown Seattle to a new downtown Seattle skyscraper that will be called the F5 Tower. The move took place in early 2019.
In 2017, it launched a dedicated website and organization focused on collecting global threat intelligence, analyzing application threats, and publishing its results, dubbed “F5 Labs” in reference to the company’s history. The team continues to research application threats and publish results every week for the benefit of the broader security community.
Acquisitions
- uRoam (SSL VPN provider) for $25 million in 2003;
- Magnifire WebSystems (Web Application Firewall) for US$ 29 million in 2004;
- Swan Labs (WAN acceleration and web acceleration) for US$43 million in 2005;
- Acopia Networks (file virtualization) for $210 million in 2007;
- Crescendo Networks’ IPR in 2011 (amount not disclosed);
- Traffix Systems (Diameter protocol switching technology) in 2012 (amount not disclosed);
- LineRate Systems in 2013 (Software-based high-performance load balancer for x86 systems with datapath node script.js );
- Versafe (anti-fraud, anti-phishing and antimalware solutions) for US$87.7 million in 2013;
- Defense. Net (cloud-based DDoS mitigation service) for US$49.4 million in 2014;
- CloudWeaver previously Lyatiss (Application Defined Networking) in 2015 (amount not disclosed);
- NGINX, Inc. (web server and application server provider) for $670 million on March 11, 2019;
- Shape Security (Application Security) for $1 billion on December 19, 2019.
F5 products
BIG-IP
F5’s BIG-IP product family includes hardware, modular software, and virtual devices running the F5 TMOS operating system. Depending on the unit selected, one or more BIG-IP product modules can be added. Offers include:
- Local Traffic Manager (LTM): Local load balancing based on a comprehensive proxy architecture;
- Application Security Manager (ASM) – A firewall for Web applications;
- Access Policy Manager (APM): Provides access control and authentication for HTTP and HTTPS applications;
- Advanced Firewall Manager (AFM): Local DDoS protection, data center firewall;
- Application Acceleration Manager (AAM) : through technologies such as compression and caching;
- IP Intelligence (IPI): blocking known invalid IP addresses, preventing phishing attacks and botnets;
- WebSafe: Protects against sophisticated fraud threats by leveraging strong encryption, clientless malware detection, and session behavioral analysis capabilities;
- DNS BIG-IP: Distributes DNS and application requests based on user, network, and cloud performance conditions.
BIG-IP History
On September 7, 2004, F5 Networks released version 9.0 of the BIG-IP software as well as the “appliances” to run the software. Version 9.0 also marked the introduction of the company’s TMOS architecture, with significant enhancements including:
- Switched from BSD to Linux to manage system management functions (disks, recording, booting, console access, etc);
- Create a traffic management microkernel (TMM) to communicate directly with network hardware and handle all network activities;
- Creation of the standard full proxy mode, which completely terminates network connections on the BIG-IP and establishes new connections between the BIG-IP and member servers in a pool. This allows for optimal TCP stacks on both sides and the full ability to modify traffic in both directions.
Subsequent releases have improved performance, improved application security, and supported cloud application deployments.
BIG-IQ
F5 describes BIG-IQ as a framework for managing BIG-IP devices and application services, regardless of their form factors (hardware, software, or cloud) or deployment model (on-premises, private/public, or hybrid). BIG-IQ supports integration with other ecosystem participants such as public cloud providers and orchestration engines via cloud connectors and a set of open RESTful APIs. BIG-IQ uses a multi-tenant approach to management. This allows organizations to approach IT as a service without worrying that it will affect the stability or security of the service fabric.
Silver Line
Silverline is a cloud-based application service. Its offerings include security services such as WAF and DDoS protection services.
Cloud, container, and orchestration solutions on F5
In 2017, the company introduced technologies to make F5 capabilities more portable in a wider range of IT environments, including:
- Application Service Proxy is an automated traffic management proxy that provides F5 services (and service portability) with containerized environments;
- Container Connector combines F5’s application services platforms (including BIG-IP and Application Services Proxy) with native container environment management and orchestration systems such as Kubernetes, RedHat OpenShift, Pivotal Cloud Foundry, and Mesos.
References (sources)
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