F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack

Score8 out of 10

17 Reviews and Ratings

What is F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack?

A solution to deploy and orchestrate applications on a managed Kubernetes platform with centralized, SaaS-based management of distributed applications with a single pane of glass and rich observability. Simplified by managing deployments as one across on-prem, cloud, and edge locations.

Categories & Use Cases

Container Management

Cluster Management
Product’s ability to centralize the management of multiple container or node clusters.
Category average: 8.3
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging
Product provides tools to manage performance, health, and other data related to containers or clusters. This could include analytics tools, logging tools, live dashboards, etc.
Category average: 8.4
Resource Allocation and Optimization
Product’s ability to balance resource requirements, availability needs, and workload intensity to optimize resource usage.
Category average: 8.1

Self-Healing and Recovery
Product can be configured to automatically restart, replace, reschedule, kill, and validate jobs, containers, nodes, or clusters.
Category average: 8.2
Discovery Tools
Product provides methods (such as URIs or sortable lists) to easily find and access jobs, nodes, containers, or clusters.
Category average: 8.3
Update Rollouts and Rollbacks
Product provides tools or functionality to deliver updates to containerized applications in ways that minimize the impact of errors, and revert updates that cause problems.
Category average: 7.8

Jake Williamson

Cloud Architect in Information Technology at Quantum Flairs (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use it heavily on enterprise projects where applications need to run across multiple Kubernetes environments, not just a single cloud cluster. The biggest problem it takes off our shoulders is the stress and complexity of managing Kubernetes workloads across different locations. This is huge for someone in my position who spends half their day managing cloud stacks.

Pros

A key example of F5's superpower is that you can run central app deployments while still using fleet segmentation to distinguish site groups, rather than building our own script layer to keep multiple clusters synchronized.

Cons

F5 isn't an automatic economic choice for conventional cloud-native apps. If the client's real requirement is a handful of Kubernetes workloads in one public cloud, I'd struggle to justify the extra platform layer over a managed Kubernetes service.

Return on Investment

Less custom engineering around multi-cluster app deployments.
Reusable architecture patterns.
Much lower platform operations overhead when an environment genuinely has many distributed sites.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Azure Red Hat OpenShift

Other Software Used

(EOL) Cisco CloudCenter, AWS CloudHSM, TeamViewer

Venkat Kosuru

Pre Sales Consultant in Information Technology at Tech Data Singapore Pte Ltd (51-200 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In our organization, we are using F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack for apps in our COE lab environment

Pros

multi cloud app delivery
application security
Networking Connectivity

Cons

Deployed and manage applications consistently across on promise
Protect application with web application firewall.
securely connect users and branches data centers

Return on Investment

F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack is meeting our data center firewall requirements
using the Web stack is easy.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Cloudflare, Akamai API Gateway and NetScaler

Verified User

Contributor in Information Technology (10,001+ employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Great for load balancing, traffic management, securing, and protecting cloud apps. It is a scalable and flexible platform with multiple features to support complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments. BIG-IP Cloud App Stack is slightly on the expensive side, but worth the cost given its WAF and DDoS protection and its integration with DevOps workflows.

Pros

Complex cloud configurations.
WAF and DDoS protection.
Automation and workflow integration.

Cons

Complex to configure.
Price
Overkill solution for small businesses.

Return on Investment

Price
Frequent patching.
Clunky terraform/UI.

Usability

Other Software Used

Infoblox DDI (BloxOne), F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), F5 BIG-IP DNS

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (11-50 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

use it to host outfacing app , and also to test its robustness before deployment

Pros

ease of use
scalability
security

Cons

bit of learning curve
memory footprint

Return on Investment

simplify container testing
reduce infrastructure maintenace

Usability

Verified User

Employee in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In our organization, We are beginning our journey into Kubernetes with F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack and they have become a great partner, helping us each step in the process.

Pros

Kubernetes
Cloud
Ease of use
Value

Cons

Product showcasing
Support

Return on Investment

We are able to consolidate with F5, eliminating Cloudflare.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

F5 Big-IP Advanced Web Application Firewall and F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack

Red Hat OpenShift

Cloudflare

Tanzu Application Platform

F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack

What is F5 Distributed Cloud App Stack?

Categories & Use Cases