Two leading network performance specialists go head to head. Les Howarth, managing director, F5 Networks and Shaun Page, vice president, Juniper Networks ANZ talk strategy and numbers.
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Page: In terms of SSL VPNs, how do you expect to follow the market into the Service Provider space?
Howarth: This question might have been more timely immediately following our entry into the secure remote access space two years ago. Regardless, F5 is already present in the vast majority of telco and service providers around the world -- including many SSL VPN solution implementations. In fact, many major telcos are picking up F5's FirePass SSL VPN controller as a value-added service offering for their own client bases and rolling it into their primary product lines. F5 has a strong customer history with all of Australia's largest mobile and fixed service providers and we are very optimistic about the viability of FirePass as a VAS with each of them.
Howarth: Do you believe integration with end-point security solutions such as antivirus and personal firewalls are important? Pursuant to this, how many end-point solutions do you provide out-of-the-box integration with?
Page: Juniper absolutely believes that the network must work with end-point software and applications. In the remote access space our Juniper Endpoint Defense Initiative (JEDI) provides out-of-the box integration with many partner security products. Current JEDI partners include InfoExpress, Microsoft, McAfee, Sygate, TrendMicro, Whole Security, and Zone Labs.
This allows customers to validate end-point security postures using their existing software and then use Juniper Secure Access gateways to enforce resource policies based on the results.
At the carrier level we have been working for two years on an industry initiative known as the Infranet. This brings together network vendors such as Juniper, carriers like BT, and application developers such as Microsoft to create a way for applications to request service characteristics directly from the network and for one network to request services from another network. These interfaces are using the well-developed Web services request framework.
Page: Have you found that the acquisition of ArrowPoint increased competition in the Server Load Balancing space or decreased it?
Howarth: I assume you are asking about Cisco's acquisition of ArrowPoint some four years ago. Pursuant to this, F5 has gained 12 points of market share from Cisco in the total L4-7 market globally since then and closed the market share gap between F5 and Cisco from 30 percent to only five percent. Further to this, following Nortel's acquisition of Alteon (shortly after the Cisco/Arrowpoint deal) F5 has subsequently gained 14 percent market share from Nortel.
Increased competition? Absolutely! And the marketplace has voted loudly.
Lastly, it is interesting to note your reference to the SLB space. At F5 we haven't used this acronym for a very long time. Yes, we do perform server load-balancing, in fact, we invented it, but the marketplace has evolved so much since then and our real focus today is on application traffic management, encompassing all levels of application optimisation, delivery, and security -- not merely load balancing.
Howarth: What steps have you taken to make the installation, setup, and on-going management of your devices more intuitive and efficient?
Page: Let's look at this from the point of view of the carrier and of the enterprise. In the service provider space we ensure our routers can interface with carrier management platforms using standards-based XML configuration management tools.
In the enterprise we've focused on providing easy-to-use Web interfaces regardless of the type of product. For enterprise routers we have added a Web front-end for configuration and management. We have found that engineers with prior routing experience can get up to speed on our routers with our one-day cross-over training course. Our firewalls have a well-regarded Web interface as well as a centralised manager called NSM to ease deployment of large numbers of devices. It too has a Web interface. Our SSL remote access products use only a Web interface and have won numerous awards in the IT press.
