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F5 Technologies
The TMOS platform, open APIs, and DevCentral
F5 is the only vendor to offer a single, universal platform that can make all your applications work.
We know that applications in a network environment don't always work the way they should. They can become slow, insecure, or even unavailable.
In the past, organizations have been forced to rewrite applications, install more single-purpose hardware devices, or pay for additional servers or faster connections.
F5 has changed all of that.
We have developed an underlying, shared product platform called TMOS™, unlike anything else in the industry. TMOS operates in a fundamentally different way than competing technologies, using a highly versatile open API to keep your applications secure, fast, and available.
Because TMOS uses an open API that encourages flexibility and innovation, the technology has inspired a thriving online community of application and network professionals. F5 DevCentral brings together tens of thousands of active members worldwide, who collaborate every day on new ideas, techniques, and code to get even more out of their F5 products.
TMOS Platform™
A unified software platform that is unique in the industry.
TMOS™ is a universal, shared product platform that is the foundation for F5 products. No single competing technology can solve such a wide variety of application-delivery problems over a network.
We designed TMOS from the ground up to make networks "application-aware" and to let F5 products communicate with each other. This allows for intelligent control of your network -- and that ensures your applications are delivered exactly as intended, protected from security threats, traffic congestion, and network failures.
F5 products built on TMOS also offer unusual flexibility through an open API. Applications can instruct TMOS-based devices to control traffic flow and maximize performance using the iControl API. Network professionals can gain extremely granular control over any traffic going through F5 devices using iRules.
This adaptability allows TMOS to automatically adjust to network conditions and business policies, giving you an otherwise impossible level of control. At the same time, TMOS accommodates changes in network demands and expedites easy adoption of evolving application requirements -- including new software modules for emerging technologies such as XML and VoIP.
Open APIs
Flexibility you can't find anywhere else.
Not only is every network unique, but security threats and application requirements are constantly evolving, putting different demands on that network. A single-purpose solution that works today might not work tomorrow.
That's why F5 uses an open API to give application developers and network professionals complete control over F5 devices, making them extremely scalable and adaptable.
Are you an application developer?
F5 provides a software development kit and a well-documented iControl API, so you can give your software the ability to control its own application traffic. Using the iControl API, application programmers have devised solutions that:
- Bring new servers online and offline dynamically, as needed
- Give priority to critical traffic during sudden traffic bursts
- Filter out unwanted traffic
- Distribute software updates to individual servers without impacting overall service
- Manage total delivery of all applications from a single console
Microsoft, Oracle, and other organizations have already partnered with F5 to use the iControl API to make their enterprise applications "network aware."
Learn more about how enterprises are using the iControl API in the F5 Solution Center.
Are you a network professional?
F5 can help you solve your organization's unique application-delivery challenges with the iRules control language. iRules represent a revolutionary approach to intercepting, parsing, modifying, and routing application traffic, making our devices extraordinarily flexible.
An iRules script gives direct control over the TMOS™ Universal Inspection Engine, so you can augment or override the functions built into an F5 device. Using iRules, network professionals have been able to:
- Deter newly discovered security threats
- Halt phishing attacks
- Stop spam e-mail
- Route traffic to specific servers, based on packet content
The iControl API and iRules have inspired a free, thriving online community called DevCentral, where tens of thousands of users discuss and share their iRules, receive Tech Tips and advice, and find new ways to accelerate productivity and innovation.
Products Overview
Managing the delivery of applications across multiple networks is a complex problem -- especially when some of those networks lie outside of your direct control. That's why F5 takes a holistic approach to application delivery networking.
Organizations try to address this complexity in many different ways: buying more bandwidth, installing additional servers, even rewriting applications. Unfortunately, these strategies are usually costly, and they are only partial fixes.
Deploying F5 products at key points in the network is generally far less expensive -- and our products address the underlying problems more directly and more effectively.
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VIPRION™ Hardware
FirePass Hardware
WANJet Hardware
Enterprise Manager Hardware
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BIG-IP Hardware
BIG-IP Product Modules
BIG-IP Feature Modules
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