VIPRION 2400 uses vCMP to allow logical separation of BIG-IP software instances on a single device, enabling enterprise IT to scale on demand and be more agile in addressing changing business conditions.

The application delivery controllers (ADCs) traditionally used to manage web applications and user traffic to those applications offered limited scalability, forcing organizations to add more and more devices as their needs grew. That all changed in early 2008 when F5 Networks released its VIPRION system, featuring a revolutionary chassis and blade architecture that extends the power of F5’s BIG-IP product family.

Unlike other ADC platforms, VIPRION scales seamlessly without sacrificing manageability or simplicity. Performance blades can be added on demand as network environments and applications require increased processing power. There’s no added complexity because all blades operate together in a unified solution. And individual blades can be installed or removed without network disruption because traffic is automatically rerouted to the other blades.

Now F5 has taken this technology to the next level with the VIPRION 2400, a midrange platform that provides significant price/performance advantages. In addition, F5 has introduced a new Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP) technology that combines virtualization and multi-tenancy capabilities to help customers consolidate and efficiently manage application delivery services. Building on F5’s Clustered Multiprocessing (CMP) technology, vCMP enables multiple instances of BIG-IP software to run on one device. VIPRION hardware platforms will support F5’s unique vCMP capabilities.

On-Demand Scalability

With the VIPRION 2400’s chassis-based architecture, customers can enjoy enhanced availability features and the flexibility to scale their ADC infrastructures without changing network, application or device configurations, leading to dramatically reduced operating costs. VIPRION running vCMP gives enterprises the unprecedented ability to have complete, logical separation of software versions and instances on a single, highly scalable device. This capability is critically important for large enterprises and cloud and service providers who need on-demand scalability and the ability to ensure that each group’s resources and network traffic are fully isolated from one another.

The VIPRION 2400 is a midrange platform that enables a broader range of customers to take advantage of the inherent capabilities of the VIPRION architecture, including on-demand throughput, SSL processing, compression and CPU resources. In addition, VIPRION solutions act as a SuperVIP — a virtual IP that can span multiple blades — enabling applications to harness the processing power of all the blades within the system. Because of this unique capability, VIPRION solutions with vCMP technology provide customers with carrier-class scalability and reliability.

“We’re pleased to see that F5 is making its powerful VIPRION platform a viable option to more enterprises with its aggressive price/performance,” said Vince Conroy, CTO at FusionStorm clear that F5 is listening to the needs of customers and partners. The VIPRION 2400 combined with F5’s flexible vCMP technology will open up more business opportunities for IT-as-a-Service and cloud offerings, with the solution providing true virtualization and the ability to isolate ADC resources.”

Unbeatable Performance

Like all VIPRION platforms, the VIPRION 2400 enables customers to scale their ADC deployments without installing additional hardware devices, because new blades can be added to the chassis as needed. This provides a higher level of device resiliency because blades can be removed or taken offline without disrupting traffic.

Customers can scale their infrastructures and respond to varying conditions without requiring the costly and time-consuming network changes associated with other vendors’ solutions. The VIPRION 2400 also includes integrated onboard management and I/O for each blade instead of requiring separate blades for management and I/O.

The VIPRION 2400 offers industry-leading Layer 4 performance of 160Gbps at a highly competitive price. VIPRION solutions offer significant performance advantages over competitors’ solutions by forming a virtual processing fabric that utilizes all the available CPUs across every blade in the system. To achieve comparable performance with other vendors’ solutions, IT teams would need to deploy additional devices, taking up valuable resources in the data center and increasing the management burden. With VIPRION solutions, each additional blade linearly increases resources and processing power and is immediately incorporated into the virtual processing fabric without any additional management overhead.

Superior Flexibility

vCMP can run multiple instances and versions of BIG-IP, each completely isolated from the others, so individual groups in an organization have the flexibility to run the version of BIG-IP software that’s most appropriate for their needs. In addition, they can upgrade their software and schedule downtime when it’s appropriate for them rather than according to another groups’ requirements.

When different BIG-IP instances are striped across blades, vCMP load balances traffic across each blade. In the unlikely event a blade goes down, the application continues to run and traffic continues to be processed on other blades without any disruption in service. This is not possible with other vendors’ ADC solutions.

With the ability to easily add blades to the VIPRION chassis, organizations no longer need to purchase a “throttled down” ADC, then pay for an additional license when their traffic needs increase. Instead, the VIPRION platform enables customers to transparently allocate the appropriate amount of resources by adding a new blade.

“The industry’s movement toward a virtual data center model requires that the infrastructure provide a higher level of resiliency than ever before,” said Zeus Kerravala, SVP of Enterprise Research at Yankee Group. “An increasing number of enterprise IT teams are expected to deliver nonstop operations, which requires virtualizing and automating many of the compute functions needed to support the rapid evolution of data centers. F5’s innovative vCMP technology coupled with the VIPRION 2400 provides a critical building block that will help more enterprises meet the current and future challenges of data center operations.”