Once a solid contender in the WAN optimization market, F5 has allowed its WANJet product line to whither, while investing in its high-end BIG-IP platform. This strategy calls into question how F5 will serve the smaller end of the market – particularly mid-sized companies and enterprise branch offices. F5 is touting what it is branding as “Unified Application Delivery” on the BIG-IP platform as the evolution of enterprise application delivery, however, it is unclear how it plans to actually deliver on its vision – particularly at the branch office level.

Vendor and Product Overview

F5’s BIG-IP products are the core of its product lineup. The BIG-IP platform is – among other things – a Web accelerator, application layer firewall, and load balancing appliance. F5 is relying on the BIG-IP platform to deliver on its vision of unified application delivery, which makes sense, but the company’s effort to communicate the transition from WANJet to BIG-IP has been abysmal.