F5 is a global company that specializes in application services and application delivery networking (ADN). F5 technologies focus on the delivery, security, performance, and availability of web applications, as well as the availability of servers, cloud resources, data storage devices, and other networking components. This company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, with additional development, manufacturing, and sales/marketing offices worldwide.

Known originally for its load balancing product, today F5’s product and services line has expanded into all things related to the delivery of applications, including local load balancing and acceleration, global (DNS based) load balancing and acceleration, security through web application firewall and application authentication and access products, DDoS defense, and more. F5 technologies are available in the data center and the cloud, including private, public, and multi-cloud environments based on platforms such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and OpenStack.

F5 Networks, originally named F5 Labs, was established in 1996. The company name was inspired by the 1996 movie Twister, in which reference was made to the fastest and most powerful tornado on the Fujita Scale: F5.

F5’s first product (launched in 1997)was a load balancer called BIG-IP. When a server went down or became overloaded, BIG-IP directed traffic away from that server to other servers that could handle the load.

In June 1999, the company had its initial public offering and was listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange with symbol FFIV.

In 2010 and 2011, F5 Networks was on Fortune’s list of 100 Fastest-Growing Companies. The company was also rated one of the top ten best-performing stocks by S&P 500 in 2010. it was also named a Best Place to Work by online jobs and recruiting site Glassdoor in 2015 and 2016.

Competitors included Cisco Systems (until 2012 )Citrix Systems, and Radware.

François Locoh-Donou replaced John McAdam as president and CEO on April 3, 2017.

On May 3, 2017, F5 announced that it would move from its longtime headquarters on the waterfront near Seattle Center to a new downtown Seattle skyscraper that will be called F5 Tower. The move will occur in early 2019.

In 2017 this company launched a dedicated site and organization focused on gathering global threat intelligence data, analyzing application threats, and publishing related findings, dubbed “F5 Labs” in a nod to the company’s history. The team continues to research application threats and publish findings every week to benefit the broader security community.

Acquisitions

  • uRoam (SSL VPN vendor) for US$25 million in 2003
  • Magnifire WebSystems (web application firewall) for US$29 million in 2004
  • Swan Labs (WAN acceleration and web acceleration) for US$43 million in 2005.
  • Acopia Networks (file virtualization) for US$210 million in 2007
  • DPI intellectual property from Crescendo Networks in 2011 (amount undisclosed)
  • Traffix Systems (Diameter protocol switching technology) in 2012 (amount undisclosed)
  • LineRate Systems in 2013 (high-performance, software-based Load Balancer for x86 systems with node.js datapath scripting)
  • Versafe (anti-fraud, anti-phishing, and anti-malware solutions) for US$87.7 Million in 2013 Defense.Net (cloud-based DDoS mitigation service) for US$49.4 million in 2014
  • NGINX, Inc. (web server and application server vendor) for US$670 million on March 11, 2019

products:

LTM or Local Traffic Manager

ASM or Application Security Manager

APM or Access Policy Manager

AAM or Application Acceleration Manager

AFM or Advance Firewall Manager

IPI or IP Intelligence

BIG-IP DNS

WebSafe

 

F5 Courses:

                             

Introduction of F5 Products: