how to guide: case study


company to protect its applications from Internet security threats. BIG-IP ASM is an advanced web application firewall that analyses web traffic coming into the data centre for evidence of malicious behaviour. It also selected F5’s BIG-IP Global Traffic


Manager (GTM) to manage traffic among its three data centres. This allows the company to distribute application workloads between the three facilities, delivering the maximum utilisation of its resources. In the case of a disaster, the GTM will also help to ensure that redundant systems are brought online as soon as possible. In order to manage the performance of critical business systems, such as its IBM WebSphere integration platform or its Siebel CRM application, in a responsive fashion, the company configures F5’s application delivery network infrastructure using the iRules customisable scripting language.


We can’t compete without a top- notch, durable application


delivery network infrastructure


these applications deliver to customers. Unlike the inflexible load-balancing system that caused the company’s website to fail, this allows the company to manage its application infrastructure in response to issues as they arise. “If one of our WebSphere servers is unavailable, for instance, an iRule can detect that issue and redirect customers to another server or data centre,” explains the company’s IT manager. “Customers will not see server errors or experience service interruptions due to the flexibility we have with iRules


and the BIG-IP devices.” Investing in the F5 infrastructure has


helped the organisation to protect one of its key competitive differentiators in an increasingly crowded market, namely high- quality customer service. “If our website is down and if our


In control Using customised iRules, the IT department can monitor the company’s enterprise applications and other services, and it can intercept and manipulate the data that


18 WWW.INFORMATION-AGE.COM


services aren’t available, this can encourage our customers to take their business elsewhere,” the IT manager explains. “People want all-the-time, reliable access to their accounts. We can’t compete without a top-notch, durable application delivery network infrastructure, and F5 has provided us with just that.”


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