Major difference between BIG-IP GTM and LTM Physical and Virtual Appliance

Hopefully this link is a gd starting point.

Physical v virtual ADC

Hi Monaro,

If its a GTM+LTM combo then I will recommend to go with Physical Appliance.

Regards,

Physical Appliance would be better if it handles heavily SSL transaction or does acceleration.

In a complex environment, you can also design to dedicate SSL processing to physical appliance and assign VE to do particular task of load balancing.

Btw, there are a few other factors to consider in choosing between physical or virtual.

Hi Guy, Thanks so much for the feedback, really appreciate it.

Quesiton for hwidjaja - Would you kindly elaborate more on (other factors to consider in choosing between physical or virtual) and Provide some more details on it. PLS

I would recommend to read the pdf from Nathan and to consult with F5.

Some considerations are like cost efficiency, manageability, flexibility, sizing, security, etc.

I think the biggest difference between physical and virtual is what's often called "speeds and feeds" - the amount and throughput capacity of the appliance. While the newer VE licensing can blur that line a bit, the software is identical, so you're basically missing the hardware-specific acceleration features of the physical box (SSL, caching, compression, etc.). One other consideration is the box itself. The platform is ICSA-certified, so you can put a BIG-IP in your DMZ and treat it like a firewall (with or without AFM). If you run it in a VE, there's an additional hypervisor layer above the BIG-IP that is now dependent on the security of the virtualization vendor and the commodity hardware you're running it on. Considering that a GTM is usually located closer to the edge of the network than other load balancing services, it may make more sense to go physical.

Thanks Guys! Its been a great help.