Innovations in cloud, big data, and mobility as well as users’ expectations for anywhere, anytime, and any device access are defining new data center networking requirements, which include more scalable and high-capacity networks, content and context awareness, comprehensive management of multiple cloud environments, and better network security.

F5 offers a unified data center networking solution that meets these requirements. It uses a common hardware and software framework to deliver multiple services. This simplifies the configuration and management of network resources without any hardware restrictions.

ACG Research analyzed the total cost of ownership of a simplified data center use case using the F5 unified solution as compared to a solution using multiple point products. It found that the F5 solution has 83 percent lower TCO, capital expense, and operations expense over five years as compared to the point products solution.

Capex is reduced by unification of all five functions in a single solution, which eliminates replication of i/o ports (back-to-back) and replication of chassis common costs, such as power supplies, backplanes, and software operating systems. Opex is reduced by the use of a single management interface that eliminates the complexity involved in using five different management interfaces, the consolidation of five vendor service agreements into one, and consolidation of all five functions, each with its own chassis, into a single unified chassis.

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