F5 delivers Agile Application Delivery and Management in new BIG-IQ

F5 Networks hasannounced at Cisco Live the next version of its F5® BIG-IQ™, the company’s intelligent management framework that provides a single point of integration for administering and orchestrating security and application delivery services. With this update, BIG-IQ enables deeper collaboration between the network operations center and DevOps teams by centrally managing application delivery and by employing role based access control (RBAC). The resulting workflow simplifies operations – boosting efficiency and freeing the network team from having to set individual application delivery policies – while maintaining a flexible approval process.

“A key component of F5 Synthesis™ architecture, BIG-IQ continues to deliver on our vision for reducing the cost and complexity of managing application delivery services locally and in public and private clouds,” said Karl Triebes, EVP of product development and CTO at F5. “As companies continue to invest in hybrid infrastructures to enable more nimble application delivery, we are proud that BIG-IQ is the only solution of its kind to integrate both RBAC and a system for staging and scheduling configuration changes.”

Product Details
BIG-IQ offers both an innovative UI and RESTful APIs to centrally manage F5 BIG-IP devices and to control F5’s Local Traffic Manager™, Advanced Firewall Manager,™ and Application Security Manager™ solutions. BIG-IQ’s use of iApps® templates orchestrates Software Defined Application Services™, both locally and in public and private clouds to increase business agility while eliminating many of the risks associated with managing point solutions individually. BIG-IQ provides a single point of integration between solutions from F5 and technologies from Cisco, VMware, Microsoft, and OpenStack.

Key capabilities include:
· Manage Application Delivery Services: Role-based central management of application delivery functions across the network to increase agility with software-defined orchestration of application services.
· Orchestrate Application Delivery in the Cloud: Enhanced connectivity and partner integration with expanded orchestration and management of cloud platforms via third-party developers, as well as improved customer experience via workflows and integrations.
· Manage BIG-IP Devices: Manage physical and virtual BIG-IP devices and virtual edition licensing from a single pane of glass.
· Manage Security: Centralizes security policy deployment, administration, and management, thereby simplifying firewall policy management and enabling stronger security.
· Reduce Risk: Safer change management through simplified configuration and the removal of many of the administrative touch-points across multiple devices.

Cisco APIC Integration
As part of our tightly integrated technology partnership, these BIG-IQ orchestration updates will also be available through the Cisco® Application Policy Infrastructure Controller™ (APIC). BIG-IQ reduces the learning path for network engineers who are new to application services by orchestrating physical and virtual platforms in both traditional architectures and software-defined network (SDN) environments. A preferred Cisco partner for deploying policy-driven application services across layer 4–7 (L4–7) fabrics, F5 helps joint customers significantly reduce operating costs without compromising security, availability, or performance. As an extension of the F5 Synthesis architecture and programmable Software Defined Application Services within Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), BIG-IQ® solutions are uniquely positioned to bring L4–7 multi-tenant capabilities to Cisco ACI environments.

“F5 Synthesis and Cisco ACI can deliver industry-first integration with BIG-IP appliances and the BIG-IQ orchestration system. Cisco ACI and F5 joint solutions offer customers a choice depending on their preferences, operational models, and business needs. Customers can manage F5 BIG-IP appliances and Virtual Editions directly from the Cisco APIC controller for automated L4–7 service insertion and stitching,” said Soni Jiandani, SVP, Marketing, Cisco. “Joint F5 and Cisco customers will be able to integrate APIC with BIG-IQ for dynamic creation of APIC plug-ins based on existing iApps and iRules® configurations in their environments. Together, Cisco ACI and the F5 portfolio deliver true, rich application deployments while preserving customers’ L4–7 operational models, guaranteeing multi-tenancy and scale.”