Introduction

Welcome to the F5 Technical Accreditation. This curriculum was developed for F5 employees and
partners to provide the necessary knowledge and skills to engage in technical conversations with
customers about their application delivery needs and show how F5 can seamlessly integrate into
their existing environments.
F5 offers a powerful and flexible suite of products that helps organizations create an agile IT
infrastructure that aligns with the demands of their business. This curriculum will not cover every
integration option in the F5 portfolio. Instead, the intent is to show the challenges that businesses
face and illustrate how F5 solutions can be deployed to help system administrators gain strategic
points of control wherever information is exchanged.
At various points in the curriculum there will be an opportunity to take exams on one or more of
the completed modules. After passing all of the exams, learners will receive a certificate showing
successful completion of the Technical portion of the F5 Sales Accreditation. Click Next to
continue.

This program includes 12 e-learning modules and will take approximately 9 hours to complete. By
the end of the training, you will have a good foundation of knowledge about the F5 products and
platforms.
This first module provides an overview of the topics discussed in the rest of the training. Because
the F5 solution is an integrated system, it is important that you have a broad understanding of the
F5 strategy and product portfolio before drilling deeper into individual components.
Before we get started, click on the Course Navigation button to learn how to move through this
course.
Course Navigation

long the bottom of the screen there are several navigation buttons. You will need to click the Next
button to move to the next slide, and click the Back button to move to the previous slide.

The Course Map displays an overview of the course and the CC button, which stands for Closed
Captioning, allows you to follow along with the courses narration if needed. The Audio On and
Audio Off button turns the audio portion of the course on and off. The Resources button will
display a list of printable job aids and or allow you to access additional information. Longer
training modules include a Main Menu button which lets you navigate between lessons in the
module.

Finally, a Progress Bar is located at the bottom of the slide. As the slide plays, the slider will move
across the screen to track your progress.

Rollover the highlighted areas to review this information again.

Once you are ready to continue, click the Next button.


The F5 design philosophy is unique and its based on this reasoning:

"The only reason the network exists is to support the applications running on top of it and ensure
that they are successfully delivered in an operationally efficient manner."

F5 application delivery solutions balance traffic and offload compute-intensive functions, screen
traffic for security threats, and speed the flow of traffic to improve the performance, availability,
and security of applications.

"What good is security if the applications youre protecting are down or simply unavailable
because theyre too slow? And what good is a highly optimized and available business critical
application if it is not secured?"
F5 provides an application infrastructure that is adaptable and cost effective; moving from
disparate systems and architectures to an integrated application fluent architecture; from manual
tasks to automation; and from implementing functions directly in the applications themselves to
offloading these functions to a centralized network resource for better efficiency. F5 provides
strategic points of control throughout the IT infrastructure, enabling organizations to scale, adapt,
and align with changing business demands.


TMOS

The second module in this training explores TMOS: the shared product platform that is the
foundation for F5 products.

TMOS allows for full proxy, intelligent control of a network -- which ensures applications are
delivered exactly as intended and protected from security threats, traffic congestion, and
network failures. The adaptability provided by this centralized infrastructure lets F5
devices automatically adjust to network conditions and business policies, giving
administrators a previously unattainable 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 voice over IP.

TMOS allows network professionals to use F5 iRules to gain extremely granular control over any
traffic going through F5 devices. F5 iRules is an event-driven scripting language that customizes
how application traffic is intercepted, inspected, transformed, and directed.

F5 iControl is an open API that helps automate communication with applications and eliminates
the need for costly manual intervention. Applications or external management systems can
instruct F5 TMOS-based devices to control traffic flow and maximize performance using iControl.
This allows for easy integration and data center automation by connecting the data center
ecosystem to the traffic and application control point.

It is important to keep in mind that TMOS is not a product; it is a universal, shared product
platform that adds intelligence and complete control to application delivery. TMOS is a unique
differentiator for F5 in the marketplace. No single competing technology can solve such a wide
variety of IP-based application-delivery problems over a network.

GTM

The next training modules in the accreditation program cover the F5 core application delivery
controllers: BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (or LTM), and Global Traffic Manager (or GTM).

These products address the first two issues for application delivery application delivery within a
single data center and application delivery within multiple data centers.

In the past, vendors could solve this for customers by selling a simple load balancer. Spread the
traffic among several servers and its done. But as applications get more complex, the
methods used for load balancing have to keep up. Administrators cant just evenly spread
the traffic around; in order to distribute the traffic appropriately while maintaining
security, the load balancer needs to actually understand the application, including
concepts such as the user session state, the user context, and the movement of workload.

LTM provides the advanced features needed to provide intelligent load balancing and traffic
management as well as advanced application security, acceleration, and optimization.





BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager
Most enterprises have multiple data centers and administrators can no longer use simple active-
standby data center determinations. Instead, they need a system that will ensure scalability and
security of the DNS infrastructure.

BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager (GTM) provides a more intelligent way to respond to DNS queries
than simple load balancing among multiple data centers. BIG IP GTM distributes end-user
application requests based on business policies, data center conditions, network conditions, user
location, and application performance. This gives system administrators holistic control of global
traffic to ensure high availability and maximum performance for applications running across
multiple dispersed data centers. The result is better application performance, less downtime, and
simplified management.

EnhanceApplication Security and Acceleration

While LTM and GTM provide availability, security, and acceleration, F5 provides additional
modules that enhance application security and acceleration.

The first security module covered in this training is BIG-IP Application Security Manager (or ASM).

A common misunderstanding among IT professionals is that firewalls alone have the intelligence
to provide effective application security they dont. Enterprises require a web application
firewall (or WAF), like BIG-IP ASM, to provide a full view of application-level content.

ASM delivers comprehensive protection for web applications. In addition, ASM offers out of the
box security, helping organizations quickly pass a security audit without requiring changes to the
application code. PCI compliance reports provide an executive summary of requirements and
recommendations for bringing an application environment into compliance.

To keep customers informed on the latest web threats as they grow in number and complexity,
BIG-IP ASM includes a complete attack expert system with on-the-spot attack details, staging of
new policies for testing, and quick administrator notification. This advanced application-layer
gateway stops hackers and attacks while ensuring that legitimate users can access applications.



BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (or APM) is a flexible, high-performance network access
and security alternative that can effectively enforce Web access management policies.
APM verifies user identity to provide secure, context-aware access to web applications and
networks while simplifying authentication and authorization, by centralizing AAA enforcement on
the network.
With access polices, APM gives security administrators granular control of users web and network
access. The advanced Visual Policy Editor makes it easy for administrators to create individual and
group access policies for many different identities, giving the administrator insight into the
approved services users are accessing.



The next modules in the F5 Technical Accreditation training series cover the F5 acceleration
portfolio.
BIG-IP Web Accelerator is an advanced Web application delivery solution that provides a
series of technologies that overcome performance issues involving browsers, Web application
platforms, content distribution, and WAN latency. WebAccelerator improves end user experience
and reduces infrastructure costs by decreasing page download times, offloading caching and
compression from servers, and optimizing bandwidth usage.
WebAccelerator uses HTTP optimizations, advanced caching, and compression techniques to
improve web application performance. The solution simplifies deployment and
configuration by incorporating pre-configured, validated acceleration policies for typical
applications.







BIG-IP WAN Optimization Module
Increasing amounts of data are being transferred between data centers, driven by data replication
and backup, storage requirements, and data center consolidation. The trend toward virtualization
and cloud computing helps reduce IT costs and provide agility, but it also adds latency to
application delivery. In addition, as enterprises move toward commodity bandwidth solutions,
such as MPLS, Metro Ethernet and Internet VPN, packet loss and out of order packets can make
application and service delivery unreliable.

F5 reduces the replication time and overcomes latency issues between data centers with WAN
Optimization, which optimizes and accelerates data over the WAN, ensuring that application
availability, data replication, and disaster recovery requirements are met while still letting IT
departments take advantage of the reduced infrastructure costs of virtualization. By correcting
loss, F5 WAN Optimization lets enterprises deploy applications and services that are consistent
and reliable.

These services are integrated directly on the F5 BIG IP device and include superior compression,
encryption, and traffic control capabilities that dramatically reduce data replication times and
enable more efficient use of existing bandwidth. With F5 WAN optimization services, customers
can replicate and backup critical data across the WAN up to 95 times faster than without
optimization.



BIG-IP Edge Gateway.

Edge Gateway is an advanced remote access solution that provides secure, accelerated user access
to applications. The dynamic, flexible policy engine enables administrators to enforce access
policies, and provide optimization and acceleration to ensure fast, secure SSL VPN access for
remote users. Context-aware, policy controlled access mean that users receive the appropriate
level of access based on their role, device, and network.

An optional endpoint security service validates devices and enforces policies to protect the
enterprise from virus or malware infections, accidental data loss, and rogue device access.


FirePass SSL VPN is an additional F5 security solution; however, it is not included in this
training curriculum. FirePass, which is available as an appliance or in a Virtual Edition, grants
access to corporate applications using web browser technology. FirePass can grant users secure
access from anywhere they have an Internet connection, while ensuring that connected
computers are fully patched and protected.








ARX
The next product you will learn about in the accreditation curriculum is ARX. The F5 ARX solution
addresses customer concerns about complex, inflexible, inefficient, and rapidly expanding storage
environments through file virtualization.

With this solution, customers have the ability to move individual files or entire file systems in real-
time without disruption or down time. Intelligent policies automate data movement by matching
data to the most appropriate storage platforms and performing backups only where needed. The
ARX performs scheduled data movement, real-time data movement, and file movement based on
user-defined policies.

The ARX is a purpose built platform designed to scale into the largest enterprise environments.
The ARX platform sits in-band between the users (and applications they are accessing) and the file
based storage required for their applications. This lets the ARX make storage decisions which
allow customers to pool capacity, implement storage tiering, and do transparent data migration.




Enterprise Manager.

Enterprise Manager is a centralized management appliance for F5 BIG-IP devices which gives
customers a consolidated, real-time view of their entire F5 application delivery infrastructure, plus
the tools required to quickly optimize performance and scale infrastructure.
Enterprise Manager helps customers decrease deployment and management times in addition to
decreasing operational errors. This results in a significant reduction in operating expenses and
total cost of ownership.
The Enterprise Manager is a centralized manager for BIG-IP products.
Enterprise Manager features include: reporting; views; software staging; backups; and heuristics.
Rollover each term to learn more about these features.





The last training module in the accreditation program covers the BIG-IP hardware and virtual
platforms that, together with the software discussed in the earlier training modules, create the
complete system for F5 customers.
F5 designs and builds 3 different categories of platforms for application delivery:

Chassis-based platforms give customers the flexibility to add capacity without disruption,
providing the ultimate in reliability and scalability;

Application delivery switches deliver dedicated, high-performance systems that enable customers
to unify application delivery functions. This provides granular control to direct traffic based on
specific needs as well as the ability to quickly adapt to changing conditions;

And Virtual Platforms that are intended to provide flexible deployment options for discrete
applications and workloads.

F5 is committed to providing the highest quality through exhaustive design and test protocols. F5
hardware platforms meet the needs of customers with worldwide certification and compliance
standards including NEBS, FIPS, Common Criteria, CLEI, RoHS, and others.