Specifications

Chapter 1
1 - 2
What is BIG-IP software?
The BIG-IP software delivers an easy-to-use solution for deploying and
managing local area traffic. The software provides a scalable and secure
platform where you can build and deploy web-based applications for
intranet, extranet, or Internet environments. The BIG-IP software network
solutions include:
• Cost-effective, intelligent load balancing for managing user traffic to
network servers, and scaling multiple firewalls while providing web site
reliability
• Increased cache server performance and scalability through intelligent
cache load balancing, object management, and security for cache server
farms
• Increased network efficiency through competent management of Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption and decryption for secure online
transactions, centralized certificate management, and reduced burden of
SSL traffic from web servers
To see an example of the most common network application of the BIG-IP
system, see Setting up a basic BIG-IP software configuration, on page 1-13.
Installing the hardware
For detailed hardware installation and configuration information, refer to the
Dell PowerEdge 1655MC documentation.
Before you install the hardware, you should review, in the following
sections, the general information on how to optimize your blade server
system hardware for the BIG-IP software.