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Skuba_85554's avatar
Skuba_85554
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Sep 16, 2010

general advice needed

my only experience is with physical big ip units and i'm wondering how the virtual edition compares to a 6800 unit, for example. are the virtual systems reliable enough to be used in production/live environments? or are they aimed at pre-production/test/development environments?

 

 

a big question is how does it cope with ssl acceleration? i appreciate it will depend on the resources that you allocate to the virtual machine, but i remember being told on a training course years ago that the hardware ssl accelerator is very important if you're hosting secure web sites - is this still the case? if so, how well will a virtual machine cope with dealing with, say, 20 virtual servers running ssl?

 

 

basically, i'm just looking for some real-world advice/experience

 

 

thank you

 

ve
virtualization

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  • qe_102628's avatar
    qe_102628
    Icon for Nimbostratus rankNimbostratus
    Sep 21, 2010
    Yes, the systems are reliable for production loads - if BIG-IP VE 10.2 is deployed. The 10.1 trial is a 90 day trial and not intended for production usage. The VE can handle 20 virtual servers running SSL without issues. It's the Transactions Per Second that matter - i.e. a VE, doing SSL without Hardware Acceleration, can handle a certain number of TPS, but there is a finite limit to what software only SSL can do when compared to SSL handled by dedicated crypto chips. It really does depend on the load you intend to throw at it. For better answers for your environment, contact your F5 rep/reseller.
  • JRahm's avatar
    JRahm
    Icon for Admin rankAdmin
    Sep 21, 2010
    Lori wrote a blog a while back about using the right form factor in the right position: http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2010/06/16/data-center-feng-shui-fault-tolerance-and-fault-isolation.aspx Click Here

     

     

    There is a link for a hybrid application delivery architecture towards the end of that blog that is a good read: https://www.f5.com/pdf/white-papers/hybrid-adn-architecture.pdf Click Here