Azure Application Gateway vs BIG-IP

Likelihood to Recommend

For building scalable and highly available applications, Azure Application Gateway does most of the job on behalf of you; automatically load-balancing traffic from a number of users to a number of back-end servers. This ensure scalability and availability. The in-built security is great as can be expected from Microsoft, and user has a variety of tools for monitoring the health of the load-balancing function as well as the health of back end servers behind it.

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Janne Mikola

Technical Product Manager

Telia Company ABTelecommunications, 10,001+ employees

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The product provides a very successful solution for both VPN and Load Balancing, especially for medium and large-sized companies. It can be preferred in small-sized companies, but due to the price and licensing model, I think this would be an unnecessary expense. This product is very successful especially if you have more than 2 servers on the Internet, DMZ side and you are going to balance the load between them. On the local side, if you are managing a large database, this solution of F5 is truly unrivaled.

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Evren BOZTEPE

Network & Security Technical Architect

Vakıf KatılımFinancial Services, 1001-5000 employees

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Pros

Azure Application Gateway helps with URL/URI load balancing.
Azure Application Gateway offers great technical support.
The software provides automatic scaling of resources for the demand.
No issues were encountered while deploying the software and after.

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Pamela Kajumba

Software Engineer

Appnomu Savings and LoansFinancial Services, 51-200 employees

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Easy connection: you can connect to your corporate network with two clicks.
IP restriction: F5 has a list of possible insecure IP numbers, if someone tries to connect using one of these numbers, F5 BIG-IP won't connect.
Always on feature: Very handy feature, if you install always on, you won't need to click connect.

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Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Information Technology and Services Company, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

The ease of setting up a connection to the on-premises sql server to any of the Azure cloud data solutions. One can easily stand up new virtual machines and then create a separate Application Gateway to work with each of the Azure solutions like Azure Data factory or Azure Machine Learning.
Also, we can schedule the jobs to be run at a particular time and also on-demand so we would always have the data whenever we will need it.

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Mounika Chirasani

Software Engineer

JDA SoftwareComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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The appliance had power supply problems, replaced 2 over the 5 years, $3000 each
The appliance as a hardware device had no support 2 years after we bought them, moved to virtual
Requires F5 knowledge, their terminology and way of doing things needs training

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Hospital & Health Care Company, 51-200 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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Usability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

BIG-IP 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Great customization and easy to use help reference menus

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Alan Matson, CCNA:S, MCP

Senior Network Security Engineer

InsightInformation Technology and Services, 5001-10,000 employees

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Support Rating

Azure Application Gateway 10.0

Based on 2 answers

I don’t like that it's part of the Microsoft brand. In general, I am not a fan of Microsoft products but Azure gets it right.

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Mounika Chirasani

Software Engineer

JDA SoftwareComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees

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BIG-IP 7.7

Based on 7 answers

On the occasions when we've had to engage f5 support, they have been great. They have always resolved our issues quickly and been easy to work with and professional. The reason I give them a 10 out of 10, however, is because when we've had issues that have crossed over between the f5 BIG-IP, our Cisco switches, and our Microsoft IIS server the f5 support representatives have been extremely knowledgeable about every product and device involved and have been able to troubleshoot end-to-end without having to engage other vendors.

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Paul Luchini

Network Engineer

Kentucky Administrative Office of the CourtsGovernment Administration, 1001-5000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

NGINX and Kong are open sources and we don't like open-source. We want an enterprise application that helps us in the production workload.

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Thao Vo

DevOps Lead

DFO Global Performance CommerceComputer Software, 51-200 employees

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I can't recall the name of the previous software we used for remote intranet access, but it was much less reliable. F5 BIG-IP is consistent and easy to use--the authentication process happens quickly and reliably via my cell phone's facial recognition feature which is convenient and secure. No need to carry a key fob or enter a verification code. The previous software required email codes be sent and entered to verify access.

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Verified User

Professional in Human Resources

Internet Company, 10,001+ employees

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Return on Investment

Costs increased for the company, so expenses were more than before.
Was able to get better user experience so users won't feel the website is useless.

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Verified User

Contributor in Research & Development

Computer Software Company, 1-10 employees

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Load balancing is a requirement in most serious web environments, and this allows us to keep sites up and running in the event of partial server outages.
Keeping sites extra secured with the advanced security and routing features is a plus.

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Verified User

Technician in Information Technology

Entertainment Company, 51-200 employees

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Azure Application Gateway vs BIG-IP