F5 Networks, announced a new release of its "BIG-IP" Local Traffic Manager (LTM) aimed at enabling IP services to scale to millions of users while maintaining reliability. 
Specifically, F5's BIG-IP product now performs application-layer switching for SIP, RTSP, and SCTP to provide scalability and high availability. Because this new release enables scalability and high availability for connection-based SCTP devices (for example, signaling gateways), it can also provide intelligent traffic management for service providers' migration from circuit-switched to packet-switched networks.
In addition, F5's modular TMOS platform, which features "iRules" customization capabilities, enables BIG-IP LTM to act as a translator to solve interoperability challenges and application issues in IMS networks. TMOS also brings a wealth of security to IMS networks, including a full TCP and application proxy, optimized IP stacks, and virtual network segmentation. F5's iRules technology enables SIP, RTSP, and SCTP to be inspected, transformed, and redirected with complete flexibility, helping to bridge interoperability challenges and solve application issues.
Highlights of the New BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager:
- Improved availability of multimedia applications. IMS-ready, intelligent load balancing for equipment such as application servers and call session controllers provides high availability and enables carriers to scale their applications and IMS networks efficiently.
- Complete flexibility for multimedia application delivery. BIG-IP LTM's full proxy and F5's iRules allow a single point to manage the complexities of multimedia application delivery, inspecting and transforming traffic at the connection level to help fix internetworking problems.
- Enhances IMS infrastructure security. BIG-IP LTM recognizes common IP attacks against both the network and applications, blocking them before they reach critical applications and servers. Encryption offload enables application servers to dedicate resources to the application, with no processing cost to the core signaling servers.
- Ensures quality of service for multimedia applications. With multimedia rate shaping, service providers can select which applications have priority and allocate bandwidth accordingly.
- Carrier-class hardware. The BIG-IP platform offers carrier-class devices complete with a NEBS compliant option (BIG-IP 6400), DC and redundant power supply options, and redundant failover configurations. This gives carriers the options they need to meet the specific demands of their network.
