RE: F5 and Load Balancing

["Hayden Searle" <hayden.searle () safecom co nz>]

Hi Ethan

We use F5's throughout our network and we always have a pair at each
point for redundancy. We do use the same physical F5's and use VLANS to
separate tiers of equipment like ISA/Exchange FE servers.

If you think of them like a load balancing switch and think of how VLANs
work within Cisco, and how you probably have multiple devices from
different VLANs hooked into those, then you can probably see that it
isn't that big of an issue.
We also ensure that all traffic going to or coming from the F5 must pass
through a firewall as well to lock down traffic to specific ports.

Hayden

-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce () securityfocus com [mailto:listbounce () securityfocus com]
On Behalf Of Ethan_Steiger () Polk com
Sent: Wednesday, 17 January 2007 7:10 a.m.
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: F5 and Load Balancing

My Network group would like to leverage F5's bigIP products to do load
balancing in both the Web tier as well as the application tier of our
networks. While I take no issue with that approach, I do have a level of
paranoia regarding them using the same physical device. Am I justified
in my concern? Should I require them to purchase two additional F5s for
this implementation (HA configuration) or should I allow them to use the
same F5 and use VLANS to separate them? What is the threat of using the
same device? Does the costs justify the added expense?

Lots of questions.

Thanks,
Ethan

______________________________
Ethan Steiger, CISSP=20
Chief Security Officer
Polk Global Automotive=20



ethan_steiger () polk com
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