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NetworkFreelancer's avatar
Feb 10, 2025
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New to the community

Hello all, I am a Network & Security Freelancer by profession. I look after providing solutions for Firewalls, Routing/Switching and network design and implementation in general.   Recently, I hav...
  • Mayur_Sutare's avatar
    Feb 11, 2025

    Hi NetworkFreelancer 

     

    First of all, welcome to the Community!


    If you are exploring the BigIP F5 products and you are having questions/queries to be asked then, YOU ARE AT RIGHT PLACE..

    Here are my inputs to your questions -

    What are the differences?


    -The key difference is the order of execution. LTM policy takes precedence over iRule in the execution sequence.
    -With LTM policy, it will have less overhead for traffic processing when compare to iRule handling the same execution.
    -iRule is still relevant as it will be used for some specific requirement/s which are not flexible with LTM policies.

     

    What will be uses cases of both?


    -LTM policies comes with different use cases like, redirects, forward, matching some specific condition based on GEO IP, etc.
    -iRule can be created to perform similar executions which are done by LTM policies. But apart from this, iRule becomes more relevant when we have some complex use cases/needs. 


    Any advantages of one on other?


    Each one has its own advantages.

    LTM Policy -
    -Less performance overhead while processing the traffic
    -Take priority over iRule
    -Easy to configure and manage

    iRules - 
    -Useful for more complex and custom requirements.
    -Comes with more flexible options.

     

    You can also refer this article for more information.

     

    Hope it helps!

    Let us know when you test your first iRule and a LTM policy in your LAB setup.