F5 VIPRION Reviews

What needs improvement?

The most significant improvement would be to make the product cheaper. For additional features, it's currently unfortunate that the network firewall isn't really a next-generation firewall. If that were included, then we wouldn't have taken on Fortinet as well. Our problem is that we have a relatively small number of staff that is continually being reduced. It's easier to deal with one product and several screens rather than two products, Fortinet and F5. The inverse is also true, if Fortinet was a stronger product, then we probably wouldn't have taken F5.

What other advice do I have?

For others wishing to implement, you need to be very clear about what you want to do, how you want to protect your data and then search for a solution. It could be F5 or something else. When we asked for a review of the product, we provided a description of the features we wanted, and they proposed F5 and Fortinet for the same money. I think Fortinet has fewer features than F5. Fortinet is okay, although it does require two appliances so if you also want a low bouncer you have to buy for the low bouncer and Fortinet. When you take F5 only one appliance is necessary and it's a simple… more»

What is most valuable?

The solution itself is perfect. It's easy to configure and we haven't had any initial issues with the hardware or power supply.

What needs improvement?

The price is very high. They should work to make it more competitive. It would help if the licensing model was better. The support has not been helpful in terms of responding to and finding solutions to issues. It's hard to scale down the… more»

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing costs are very high for the solution. It's quite expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I'm familiar with the F5 1600. We have one for the application delivery controller and the other one as a net traffic manager. We are on the F5 network with other communication parties. I'd recommend he solution for those organizations that… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are currently looking to revisit Barracuda among other solutions. We're evaluating them right now.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the vertical scaling of the application infrastructure. If we buy one chassis and we have one or two blades on it that requires us to add to the infrastructure, we can add another blade for the same chassis and scale up our infrastructure. It's state of the art technology. They do a good job. I love working with F5.

What needs improvement?

In a Cisco chassis, you can have switching modules and firewall services modules. F5 should have these things. F5 has everything except for switching. F5 is not a switch. F5 is an application delivering a networking switch. F5 is not a network switch. It has shared networking services. It has a shared application. It has three kinds of deployment modes. You can use it in three kinds of modes.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise someone considering this solution to learn about TMOS and F file, explore the basic features, learn about the F5 modules and then buy a VIPRION chassis. It's a very good product. I love this product. I would rate this solution as a nine out of ten. Not a ten just because everything has room for improvement.