Page 1 of 2
F5 Networks executives are fond of referring to their company as the "Swiss Army Knife of the data center" and over the past two years have set about convincing solution providers and customers that F5 goes above and beyond the application delivery controller market it so decisively controls.
That "above and beyond" includes recent aggressive marketing of its security strategy and its brand-new virtual desktop infrastructure push. F5 is pitching its Big-IP application delivery products as ideally suited for supporting VDI, a market opportunity research firm Gartner sees as reaching $65.7 billion in 2013, up from about $1.5 billion three years ago.
F5 earlier this week said it now supports Citrix XenDesktop, VMware View, Microsoft Virtual Desktop and other VDI platforms. Specifically, F5's Big-IP Local Traffic Manager, Global Traffic Manager, Access Policy Manager and Edge Gateway products now include that VDI support as part of version 11.1 of the Big-IP operating system, TMOS. Customers don't need any additional licensing to access VDI support features.
"We look at VDI as just another application that needs to be delivered: first, to be available and, second, to be delivered quickly and securely. That's our mind-set here," said Peter Silva, technical marketing manager at F5, in a recent conversation with CRN.
Maximizing performance of VDI often requires a number of costly add-ons and software updates but, according to Silva, Big-IP products don't require any changes to the delivery infrastructure to complement VDI deployments. In other words, a customer's VDI support problems are solved as part of their investment in Big-IP.
The Big-IP lineup can reduce server load, optimize TCP connections and manage both local and global traffic, as well as provide functions such as Quality of Service to boost performance of VoIP and other forms of traffic with high potential for latency. IT managers also can use Big-IP to apply unified access and policies across all types of devices and potential users, enabling more secure VDI with better control over traffic, according to F5.
Further, Big-IP products include native iApps templates for VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop, enabling quicker management, provisioning and deployment of applications and services in a network. That speed, said F5, ultimately means reduced operating expenses for managing network assets.
Supplies Network, a $600 million wholesale distributor of imaging and computer supplies, uses the Big-IP Edge Gateway to manage its remote workers' VDI use. Dan Shipley, IT architect at the St. Charles, Mo., distributor, said he first learned about F5's potentially strong VDI support play when the company was evaluating F5 for a potential WAN acceleration deal nearly two years ago.
F5 ultimately did not win that deal -- it went to Cisco, whose Wide Area Application Services were more in the distributor's price range. But following an introduction to F5's portfolio by Supplies Network's solution provider partner, VAR500 integrator SHI International, Shipley's team and F5's team got to talking about an upcoming VDI project.
NEXT: F5 Tackles The Technical Challenges
