BIG-IP Profiles Concepts

BIG-IP Profiles

Profiles are used to define and control how system processes different types of traffic, protocols, and applications. Once profile are defined, they are applied to Virtual Servers that process that traffic. 

Profiles once applied to Virtual Server provides following capabilities:

• Understand and parse network and application level protocols.
• It Manipulates the protocol working behavior or Modify Protocols
• It Improves throughput and application performance
• It Enable Persistence and authentication

As an Example, If we want to manipulate the HTTP headers, we must assign the HTTP Profile to Virtual server processing that traffic. It Provides intelligence required for Virtual Server to inspect and understand the application layer protocol contained within traffic it handles.

Profile Types

Below are defined Profile types mentioned?

Protocol Profile

These Profile defines low level attributes like timeouts, Connection management attributes, etc. All Virtual Server must have at least one protocol profile assigned. By default F5 will automatically assign a default client side and server side protocol profile depending on the primary protocol which is assigned to VS. Below are some Protocol Profile mentioned:

• Fast L4
• Fast HTTP
• SCTP
• TCP
• TCP-Lan-optimized
• TCP-wan-optimized
• UDP

Persistence Profile

Persistence profile ensure that client traffic is sent to same pool member throughout a session. Persistence Profile Include:

• Source Address
• Cookie
• Hash
• Microsoft RDP
• Destination Address
• SIP
• Universal

SSL Profile

SSL profile is used to intercept the SSL traffic. This Profile used to offload the SSL Traffic or to perform the End-to-End encryption on BIG IP device. Some of the SSL Profile are

• ClientSSL
• ServerSSL

Application Service Profile

This profile control traffic at application layer and also help in enabling content compression. Application Profile include:

• HTTP
• HTTPS
• FTP
• DNS
• RADIUS
• XML

Remote Server Authentication Profile

This profile enables F5 to authenticate client traffic using underlying authentication technology. Following are some Remote Server Authentication Profile:

• LDAP
• RADIUS
• TACACS+
• SSL OCSP
• SSL/LDAP
• XMP