Barracuda Web Application Firewall vs BIG-IP

Easy to use and reliable, with very little maintenance required and zero downtime to date. For the education sector, ease of use is hugely important as IT Managers/Technicians are often "Jack of all trades" with a good, broad general knowledge but perhaps lacking specific expertise in certain aspects. Being provided with easy-to-follow tutorials and instructions has been very useful in setting up and configuring the firewall, especially as my background is more in desktop support.

Again, protection of enterprise data via VPN solution can be easily achieved with BIG IP. Despite its shortcomings, it has been very reliable as I use it daily to acess the coporate websites and do my work. I can imagine getting frustrated if the connection is not stable . Thankfully, Big IP is a very stable VPN client.

• Email Filtering and Inspection
• Web-based intrusions and attacks
• Traffic Patterns

• 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.

• Reports could be somewhat confusing.
• The initial setup was a little difficult for our Security Admin team.

• 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

Great customization and easy to use help reference menus

The Barracuda Web Application Firewall is easy to use. Support from Barracuda is great also. Load Balancing of the Web Application Firewall is also nice. This allows you to do maintenance or have large loads for the end-user. Threat monitoring of our network and traffic coming into our services within our cloud solution.

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.

We have used SonicWalls and WatchGuard firewall appliances neither are even remotely close to the Barracuda Web Application Firewall. In addition, Barracuda support is fantastic. Throw in the 4 year (free) refresh cycle and there is no reason we would even consider the other two again (at least for the foreseeable future).

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.

• Negative impact: a default port was open and missed by one of our techs.
• Positive impact: it protects us everyday now that we have it locked down.

• 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.