F5 Partnership
Collect, Investigate and Research Unencrypted + Encrypted Network Traffic at the Packet Level
Partnership Overview
The NETSCOUT / F5 Partnership
Maintaining secure networks and delivering high-quality communications services has never been more important or more challenging - and continues its transition to a multi-cloud world that enables digitization. To accomplish that goal IT, Network Operations, Engineering, and Security teams must first have visibility to the network, services, applications, and devices/subscribers running on it. Simply said, you can’t manage and protect what you can’t see!
NETSCOUT's participation in the F5 Technology Alliance program allows it to build, test, certify and offer integrations with F5 via the F5 SSLO Catalog. The new integration between the F5 and NETSCOUT vSTREAM/ISNG provides IT, Network Operations, Engineering, Network Security technicians, Engineers, and Analysts with the ability to collect, investigate and research unencrypted and encrypted network traffic at the packet level.
Outcomes That Matter
Borderless Visibility and Performance Management
Observability for Encrypted Traffic
Gain visibility to encrypted traffic with F5 feed to NETSCOUT’s service and security assurance applications.
Authorized Access to Encrypted Services
Maintain integrity of encrypted services as only authorized service and security applications have access to unencrypted traffic.
Deploy Encrypted Services with Confidence
Gain visibility to encrypted traffic to assure the delivery of high-quality services.
Custom App Automated Assurance
Discovery and continuous monitoring of custom applications to ensure SLAs are met.
Use Cases
Proactive Service Assurance, Service Triage, Analytics, and Notifications
When F5 is used in combination with NETSCOUT nGenius Enterprise Performance Management, nGenius Business Analytics, and Omnis Cyber Intelligence products users can perform proactive service assurance and service triage, analytics, and notifications can be enabled to alert network security engineers of threats to the infrastructure.
Figure on the right, depicts the use of an SSL Orchestrator with F5 BIG-IP. In physical environments, SSL Orchestrator can be added as a blade-based function. In a virtual/cloud environment, the SSL Orchestrator module can be enabled as a standalone or add-on software license to the BIG-IP Virtual Edition. In this model, the BIG-IP can provide the ISNG or vSTREAM with copies of client and/or server-side encrypted traffic, through the use of Clone Pools, while the SSL Orchestrator provides decrypted copies of traffic.
Further integration efforts with F5 enable user-controlled business application definitions to be imported directly from F5 BIG-IP server pool definitions. Now BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager can provide NETSCOUT’s ISNG instrumentation with clear, unencrypted traffic for custom applications in both physical and virtual/cloud environments. As these applications typically drive greater revenue, profitability, and competitive differentiation, ensuring a better customer experience, or helping to comply with regulatory requirements, while assuring optimal performance and security is essential.
Products
Unparalleled Visibility
vSTREAM Appliances
Comprehensive Visibility to Assure Performance Across Hybrid Cloud Environments
InfiniStreamNG Appliance
The Foundation for Comprehensive Observability Anywhere
nGeniusONE Solution
Comprehensive Observability for Today’s Complex Environments
Omnis CyberStream and Omnis Cyber Intelligence NDR Platform
Advanced DPI-Powered Network Visibility, Threat Detection and Investigation
F5 Service Catalog
The integration between F5 and NETSCOUT vSTREAM/ISNG provides IT, Network Operations, Engineering, Network Security, and Analysts with the ability to collect, investigate, and research unencrypted and encrypted network traffic at the packet level.
Resources
Improving Customer-Facing Services Across Entire Enterprise Ecosystems
Load balancers are typically a customer’s first digital point of contact with a service environment. Find expert tips to...
Leverages Technology Integration between nGeniusONE and F5 Big-IP for Application Visibility
FAQs
What is the NETSCOUT and F5 partnership focused on?
The NETSCOUT and F5 partnership, through the F5 Technology Alliance Program, is focused on helping organizations gain comprehensive visibility into application, network, and security performance across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. By integrating NETSCOUT solutions with F5 BIG-IP® and SSL Orchestrator® technologies, organizations can acquire, decrypt, inspect, investigate, and analyze application traffic, including encrypted traffic, and convert packet data into Smart Data. This near real-time actionable intelligence supports observability, cybersecurity, service assurance, and AIOps use cases for IT, Network Operations (NetOps), AIOps, and Security Operations (SecOps) teams. The combined solution helps organizations strengthen security, optimize application delivery, improve operational efficiency, and support mission-critical services.
How does NETSCOUT integrate with F5 technologies to provide visibility into encrypted traffic?
NETSCOUT integrates with F5 BIG-IP® and F5 SSL Orchestrator® to provide visibility into application and network traffic, including encrypted communications. F5 SSL Orchestrator decrypts traffic and enables inspection, while NETSCOUT sensors and collectors, including vSensor®, vSTREAM®, ISNG®, and OmniStreamer®, convert packet data into Smart Data. That Smart Data can then be analyzed by NETSCOUT platforms such as nGeniusONE® and Omnis® Cyber Intelligence or exported to third-party analytics and security platforms such as Splunk. This workflow supports observability, security analytics, AIOps, and operational workflows across encrypted traffic environments.
How does the NETSCOUT and F5 integration help improve security operations?
The integration enhances security operations by combining F5 traffic management and SSL decryption capabilities with NETSCOUT deep packet inspection (DPI), Smart Data, and advanced analytics technologies. By turning packet-level traffic into actionable intelligence, organizations can monitor network activity, detect threats, investigate suspicious behavior, and improve incident response workflows. NETSCOUT Smart Data also supports real-time and back-in-time forensic analysis and can be exported to third-party security and analytics platforms to improve detection, correlation, and response. These capabilities help SecOps teams accelerate investigations, automate security threat investigation workflows, and strengthen security posture.
What business and operational benefits does the NETSCOUT and F5 integration provide?
NETSCOUT and F5 help organizations improve application performance, maintain service availability, reduce operational risk, and increase operational efficiency by delivering real-time visibility across applications, networks, and encrypted traffic environments. NETSCOUT Smart Data analytics and monitoring capabilities enable teams to proactively identify performance issues, accelerate troubleshooting, minimize downtime, and optimize operations. By providing a common source of operational and security intelligence that can also be shared with third-party platforms, the integration helps IT, NetOps, AIOps, and SecOps teams streamline processes, automate root cause analysis and security investigation workflows, work more efficiently, and make faster, data-driven decisions.
