Azure Application Gateway vs. F5 on IBM Cloud

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.

Incentivized

F5 on IBM Cloud has efficient ways to manage traffic, both local and that from the international sources. Besides, the firewall evaluations and management is handled by the program. F5 on IBM Cloud has a well designed virtual machine configuration, following both small and the largest templates for efficiency. The network configuration and monitoring is also deployed in the program.

Incentivized

• Easy integration with Load Balancer and Azure Scale Set to provide a full solution for traffic management.
• With rich routing rule, we could use one Application Gateway as the central point for all internal applications to expose to the external network.

Incentivized

• F5 on IBM Cloud has application security features.
• Besides, the extensive local traffic management from the application is efficient.
• Lastly, the program acts as an advanced firewall managing tool.

Incentivized

• Live examples in the Azure documentation
• Application Gateway UI Blade in Azure Portal can be streamlined
• Have more advanced feature set as WAF (Web Application Firewall)

Incentivized

• F5 on IBM Cloud is a virtual edition, which is technical.
• The subscription fee is extensive and expensive.
• F5 on IBM Cloud configuration process requires an expertise.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Other load balancing tools in Azure (Azure LB and Azure Traffic Manager) are limited in their functionality in comparison with the Azure Application Gateway, and also, they don't provide security features. Azure Firewall, although it has security features, is more expensive, and most importantly, it's not a load balancer at all.

Incentivized

F5 on IBM Cloud is substantially competent in managing traffic, through network configuration and monitoring. The presence of a software security manager also suits the program for stability and confidence. Besides, F5 on IBM Cloud has an infrastructure management feature, which deals with storage, network, and the general hardware that supports systems.

Incentivized

• Positive : Improved performance and scalability
• Positive : Better and enhanced Security
• Positive : Efficiency
• Negative: Cost
• Negative: More resources to manage.

Incentivized

• F5 on IBM Cloud offers a traffic report that is critical for decisions.
• Firewall management eliminates chances of threats and destruction.
• Network monitoring and configurations keeps us safe and monitored.

Incentivized