F5 Expands VELOS Line for AI Workloads with Enhanced Security and Speed

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The introduction of new hardware additions to F5’s VELOS product line marks a significant milestone, particularly for service providers and large enterprises. These enhancements are aimed at optimizing and securing AI workloads while offering unmatched performance and simplified management. The expanded VELOS lineup, including the VELOS CX1610 chassis and BX520 blade, is engineered to support the high throughputs essential for AI growth and demanding 5G applications.

Enhancing Performance for AI Workloads

VELOS Hardware Capabilities

The VELOS CX1610 6-Tbps chassis and BX520 400-Gbps blade are introduced to handle high-volume AI traffic with unmatched scalability. These new components support NEBS-compliance, making them suitable for even the most demanding network environments, such as 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services. With the ever-growing data demands of AI and data-intensive applications, these enhancements ensure that service providers and large enterprises have the necessary infrastructure to efficiently manage vast amounts of data.

The VELOS CX1610 chassis offers expansive throughput, reaching up to 6-Tbps, making it well-suited for environments that require high-density, high-speed processing. Concurrently, the BX520 blade provides impressive throughput of 400-Gbps, allowing for seamless integration into existing infrastructures. These latest additions ensure that even the most complex AI workloads can be handled with ease, facilitating quicker and more efficient data processing and analysis. Through these advancements, F5 essentially positions VELOS as a high-performance, scalable solution that meets the growing needs of AI-driven enterprises.

Optimized Traffic Management

VELOS offers high-speed Layer 4 throughput and supports up to 6.4 billion concurrent connections, essential for large-scale AI applications. This capability ensures that service providers can maintain optimal performance while managing vast amounts of data generated by AI workloads. Effective traffic management is crucial, especially as AI applications become increasingly intricate and data-heavy. By providing robust support for traffic management, VELOS ensures that AI-driven tasks can be carried out without interruption, maintaining a seamless operations environment.

The system’s ability to dynamically allocate resources based on workload demands further enhances its traffic management capabilities. This not only optimizes traffic flow but also ensures that AI models receive the processing power they require without delays. By addressing the substantial data traffic volumes generated by AI applications, VELOS maintains low latency and consistent throughput. This optimization is critical for maintaining a high level of performance, particularly for end-users who rely on uninterrupted access to AI-driven solutions.

Advanced Security Measures

Comprehensive Security Solutions

VELOS provides robust security features, including BIG-IP AFM and BIG-IP Advanced WAF, to protect against sophisticated threats like DDoS attacks and zero-day vulnerabilities. By using FPGAs for offloading, VELOS delivers exceptional firewall performance, ensuring both safety and speed for AI applications. Security is paramount as AI-driven platforms often handle sensitive data, and VELOS aims to create a safe environment without sacrificing performance.

BIG-IP Advanced WAF protects applications from a range of intricate security threats, utilizing machine learning and dynamic signatures to identify and mitigate risks in real-time. Additionally, BIG-IP AFM shields against large-scale DDoS attacks, ensuring that application availability is never compromised. These advanced security measures integrate seamlessly with VELOS’s high-performance traffic capabilities, offering a comprehensive solution that addresses both security and performance needs simultaneously.

Enhanced Firewall Performance

With capabilities like 80 million Layer 4 connections per second and dynamic machine learning-based signatures, VELOS shields applications from cyber threats without compromising performance. This level of security is crucial for protecting data-intensive AI operations. VELOS’s firewalls are designed to operate efficiently under heavy loads, offering robust protection against sophisticated cyber threats while maintaining low latency and high throughput.

Utilizing FPGAs for offloading in firewall systems allows VELOS to maintain high performance even when processing extensive security tasks. This ensures applications remain secure without any drop in performance, a significant advantage for organizations managing large-scale AI workloads. Security solutions like BIG-IP DNS hyperscale DNS queries up to 100 million responses per second, ensuring top application performance and availability. Such robust security measures are vital for organizations relying on AI applications to make critical business decisions or handle sensitive data.

Supporting Hybrid Deployments and Automation

Bridging Traditional and Modern Architectures

VELOS supports the delivery of F5 BIG-IP and BIG-IP Next cloud-native tenants, fostering a cohesive application delivery environment across traditional and modern infrastructures. This unification is critical for maintaining consistency and reliability in hybrid deployments. By enabling seamless integration of diverse architectures, VELOS ensures that businesses can evolve and adopt new technologies without disrupting existing systems.

The hybrid deployment support not only provides flexibility but also enhances scalability, allowing organizations to scale their AI applications across multiple environments with ease. This is particularly relevant for large enterprises that often operate in complex IT environments, necessitating a blend of on-premises and cloud-based solutions. Through comprehensive support for hybrid deployments, VELOS facilitates consistent application delivery, ensuring that AI workloads can be managed effectively across varying infrastructure setups.

Automation and Scalability

Integration with automation tools such as Ansible, Terraform, and Kubernetes allows for efficient scaling and management of application delivery services. This reduces app deployment times significantly, boosting operational efficiency and facilitating rapid AI deployment. Automation is critical in modern IT environments, where the ability to quickly adapt and respond to changing demands can provide a significant competitive advantage.

Automated processes ensure that resources are allocated appropriately, optimizing the performance of AI workloads and reducing the potential for human error. With automation tools, organizations can deploy and manage applications more quickly and efficiently, freeing up resources to focus on core business activities. VELOS’s integration with popular automation tools supports this streamlined approach, ensuring that applications can be scaled effortlessly to meet the demands of growing AI workloads. The efficiency achieved through automation becomes key in maintaining an agile, responsive, and high-performing IT environment.

Market Impact and Future Potential

Addressing Industry Challenges

F5 VP and GM Maggie Stringfellow emphasizes that legacy infrastructure poses significant challenges for AI adoption. VELOS mitigates these challenges by optimizing performance and streamlining operations, making it easier to deploy and manage AI applications in hybrid multicloud environments. By addressing the limitations of outdated infrastructure, VELOS facilitates the integration and deployment of advanced AI solutions, enabling organizations to unlock the full potential of AI technologies.

The enhanced performance and security measures offered by VELOS are pivotal in overcoming traditional barriers, providing enterprises with a scalable, reliable, and secure platform to support their AI initiatives. This focus on performance and security ensures that AI applications can operate efficiently, even in complex and demanding IT environments, paving the way for broader adoption and innovation in AI technologies.

Future-Proofing AI Deployments

The new hardware additions to F5’s VELOS product line signify a crucial advancement, especially for service providers and large enterprises. These upgrades aim to optimize and secure AI workloads, delivering unparalleled performance combined with simplified management. The expanded VELOS lineup introduces both the VELOS CX1610 chassis and the BX520 blade. These new components are designed to handle the high throughputs necessary for the growth of AI and the demanding nature of 5G applications. Additionally, the advanced architecture in the VELOS product line emphasizes efficiency, speed, and robust security, which are critical in today’s technology-driven landscape. By integrating these new hardware additions, F5 is addressing the evolving needs of businesses that require scalable, high-performance solutions to manage increasingly complex workloads brought on by AI and 5G. This effort by F5 underlines its commitment to providing cutting-edge technology and solutions, ensuring its products remain highly relevant and effective in tackling current and future challenges in the tech industry.

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