Achieve Unified Access Control and Scale Cost-Effectively: BIG-IP Access Policy Manager
Achieve Unified Access Control and Scale Cost-Effectively: BIG-IP Access Policy Manager
Achieve Unified Access Control and Scale Cost-Effectively: BIG-IP Access Policy Manager
DATASHEET
What’s Inside
2 Unified Global Access
3 Consolidated Infrastructure
and Simplified Management
13 BIG-IP APM Platforms F5 BIG-IP® Access Policy Manager ® (APM) is a flexible, high-performance access and
security solution that provides unified global access to your applications and network.
13 VIPRION Platforms By converging and consolidating remote access, LAN access, web access, and wireless
connections within a single management interface and providing simple, easy-to-manage
14 F5 Global Services access policies, BIG-IP APM helps you free up valuable IT resources while you cost-
effectively secure and scale access.
14 Simplified Licensing
14 More Information
Key benefits
BIG-IP APM is positioned between the applications and the users, creating a strategic control
point in the network. BIG-IP APM protects your public-facing applications by providing policy-
based, context-aware access to external users while consolidating your access infrastructure.
It also provides secure remote access to corporate resources from all networks and devices.
By converging and consolidating remote access, LAN access, web access, and wireless
connections within a single management interface and providing access policies that are
easy to create and manage, BIG-IP APM puts IT back in control of secure network, cloud,
and application access.
BIG-IP Platform
Data Center
App 1 App n
BIG-IP APM consolidates and manages all access to networks and applications.
BIG-IP APM works with an optional client to enable secure remote access to networks,
clouds, and applications. The state-of-the-art, integrated client, BIG-IP® Edge Client,®
provides location awareness and zone determination to deliver secure, persistent, policy-
based access that is unparalleled. BIG-IP Edge Client helps ensure continued user
productivity whether the user is at home on a wireless network, using an air card in transit,
giving a presentation over corporate wireless, in a café on guest wireless, or docked on a
LAN connection. BIG-IP Edge Client can automatically detect domains and reconnect even
after losing a VPN connection, or it can automatically disconnect when a LAN connection
is detected. BIG-IP Edge Client also recognizes when an RSA SecurID software token is
installed on a user’s Windows or Mac device, prompting the user for an RSA PIN number
and seamlessly authenticating them.
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BIG-IP APM extends managed access for remote and mobile users to support a wide range
of mobile devices. The BIG-IP® Edge Portal™ application facilitates secure remote access to
enterprise web applications and is available for all Apple iOS and Google Android devices.
Full SSL VPN is available through BIG-IP Edge Client for Apple Mac, iPhone, and iPad
devices; Microsoft Windows devices; Linux platforms; and Android devices.
As the Internet continues its evolution from IPv4 to IPv6, to ensure business continuity
and future growth, organizations must expand their networking capabilities to support
the coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6. BIG-IP APM fully supports IPv6, delivering a true global
access experience.
Single sign-on
BIG-IP APM supports single sign-on (SSO) across multiple domains and Kerberos ticketing,
enabling additional types of authentication, such as Federal Common Access Cards and
the use of Active Directory authentication for all applications. Users are automatically signed
on to back-end applications and services that are part of a Kerberos realm. This provides
a seamless authentication flow after a user has been authenticated through a supported
user authentication scheme. BIG-IP APM also delivers smart card support with credential
providers, supporting SSO for users with devices running Windows 7 and above, enabling
them to connect their devices to the network before signing into their desktops.
Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) 2.0 further extends BIG-IP APM SSO options
by supporting connections initiated by both identity providers (IdPs) and service providers
(SPs). This functionality extends SSO capabilities to cloud-based applications outside the
corporate data center and also allows for identity federation across an organization’s BIG-IP
platforms. BIG-IP APM thus minimizes time spent logging into multiple applications with
SSO and enables a unified user portal for cloud, web, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI),
and client/server applications.
BIG-IP APM supports the synchronization of email, calendar, and contacts with Microsoft
Exchange on mobile devices that use the Microsoft ActiveSync protocol, such as the
Apple iPhone. By eliminating the need for an extra tier of authentication gateways to
accept Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA), ActiveSync, and Outlook Anywhere
connections, BIG-IP APM helps you consolidate infrastructure and maintain user productivity.
When migrating to Exchange 2010, BIG-IP APM works with Active Directory to facilitate
seamless mailbox migration over time. When migration is complete, BIG-IP APM provides
managed access to Exchange with single URL access, regardless of the user, device,
or network.
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Other authentication solutions use application coding, separate web server agents, or
specialized proxies, which can present significant management, cost, and scalability issues.
With AAA control directly on the BIG-IP system, BIG-IP APM enables you to apply customized
access policies across many applications and gain centralized visibility of your authorization
environment. You can consolidate your AAA infrastructure, eliminate redundant tiers, and
simplify management to reduce capital and operating expenses.
BIG-IP APM integrates with Oracle Access Manager (OAM), so you can design access
policies and manage policy-based access services for Oracle applications from one
location. By consolidating plug-ins and web authentication proxies, this integration can
help you reduce CapEx and OpEx.
Using BIG-IP APM, administrators gain dynamic control over the delivery and security
components of enterprise virtualization solutions and benefit from unified access, security,
and policy management. For instance, in a typical Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop implementation,
an administrator can replace Citrix authentication management, Secure Ticket Authority (STA),
NetScaler, and XenApp Services sites (required for Citrix sourced enterprise deployment)
with BIG-IP APM.
BIG-IP APM supports VMware Horizon View and Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop simultaneously,
as well as other technologies in the mix. In addition, BIG-IP APM provides a single, scalable
access control solution that includes both remote and LAN access policy and control with no
configuration changes required to back-end servers. The solution can also be extended to
other applications to achieve a simplified, lower-cost, highly scalable enterprise infrastructure.
Advanced reporting
An in-depth view of logs and events provides access policy session details. With reports
from technology alliance partner Splunk—a large-scale, high-speed indexing and search
solution—BIG-IP APM helps you gain visibility into application access and traffic trends,
aggregate data for long-term forensics, accelerate incident responses, and identify
unanticipated problems before users experience them.
BIG-IP APM is capable of providing customized reports with granular data and statistics
for intelligent reporting and analysis. Examples include detailed session reports by:
• Access failures
• Users
• Resources accessed
• Group usage
• IP geolocation
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Custom reports provide granular data and statistics for intelligent analysis.
BIG-IP APM helps reduce administrative costs by making it easy to quickly configure and
deploy authentication and authorization services. The configuration wizard includes a set
of pre-built application access and local traffic virtual device wizards. It creates a base set
of objects as well as an access policy for common deployments, and it automatically creates
branches in the configuration to support necessary configuration objects. With step-by-step
configuration, context-sensitive help, review, and summary, setting up authentication and
authorization services on BIG-IP APM is simple and fast.
The access policy dashboard on the BIG-IP system gives you a fast overview of access
health. You can view the default template of active sessions, network access throughput,
new sessions, and network access connections, or create customized views using the
dashboard windows chooser. By dragging and dropping the desired statistics onto the
window pane, you gain a real-time understanding of access health.
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The advanced, GUI-based Visual Policy Editor (VPE) makes it fast and simple to design
and manage granular access control policies on an individual or group basis. With the VPE,
you can quickly and efficiently create or edit entire dynamic access policies with a few
simple clicks. For example, you can design an authentication server policy integrated with
RADIUS, assign resources for access once authorization is complete, or deny access for
failure to comply with policy. A geolocation agent provides automatic lookup and logging.
This simplifies the configuration process and enables you to customize user access rules
according to your organization’s geolocation policy. The VPE also can define additional rules
per URL path to, for example, enable a policy to restrict application, network, and cloud
access based on IP address or on specific day, time of day, or identity-based attributes.
By centralizing granular, contextual policy control, the VPE helps you manage and control
access more cost-effectively.
The advanced Visual Policy Editor makes it easy to create access policies.
BIG-IP APM provides access authentication using access control lists (ACLs) and authorizes
users with dynamically applied layer 4 and layer 7 ACLs on a session. Both L4 and L7 ACLs
are supported based on endpoint posture as a policy enforcement point. BIG-IP APM
allows individual and group access to approved applications and networks using dynamic,
per-session L7 (HTTP) ACLs. You can use the Visual Policy Editor to quickly and easily
create ACLs.
Access policies
With BIG-IP APM, you can design access policies for authentication and authorization, as well
as optional endpoint security checking, to enforce user compliance with corporate policies.
You can define one access profile for all connections coming from any device, or you can create
multiple profiles for different access methods, each with their own access policy. For example,
you can create a policy for application access authentication or dynamic ACL connections.
With policies in place, your network becomes context-aware: It understands who the user
is, how and when the user is attempting application access, where the user is attempting to
access the application from, and what the current network conditions are at the time of access.
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Context-based authorization
By driving identity into the network, BIG-IP APM provides a simplified, central point of control
over user access. When tens of thousands of users access an application, BIG-IP APM
offloads SSL encryption processing, provides authentication and authorization services,
and optionally creates a single secure SSL connection to the application server. Context-based
authorization delivers complete, secure, and policy-based control over users’ navigation.
Superior Security
By making context-aware, policy-based access decisions, BIG-IP APM strengthens
corporate compliance with security standards, corporate controls, and industry and
government regulations, ensuring that users can stay productive with appropriate
web access.
VPN technologies
BIG-IP APM works with the optional BIG-IP Edge Client to provide SSL VPN remote access
for mobile and remote workers. For remote connections, it offers a Datagram Transport Layer
Security (DTLS) mode, which is well suited for securing and tunneling applications that are
delay sensitive. For traffic between branch offices or data centers, IPsec encryption is enabled.
By using VPN technologies in the BIG-IP APM unified access solution, organizations gain end-
to-end security across their entire global infrastructures.
BIG-IP APM can deliver an inspection engine through the browser or through the optional
BIG-IP Edge Client to examine the security posture of an endpoint device and determine
whether the device is part of the corporate domain. Then, based on the results, it can
assign dynamic access control lists to deliver context-aware security. The solution includes
more than a dozen preconfigured, integrated endpoint inspection checks, including OS
type, antivirus software, firewall, file, process, and registry, as well as device MAC address,
CPU ID, and HDD ID. For mobile devices running Apple iOS or Google Android, the endpoint
inspection engine checks the mobile device UDID and if the mobile device has been
jailbroken or rooted. Administrators can map hardware attributes to a user’s role to allow
additional decision points for access control. A browser cache cleaner will automatically
remove any sensitive data at the end of a user’s session.
Dynamic webtops
The dynamic webtop displays a list of web-based applications available to a user after
authentication. The content of the webtop is dynamic in the sense that only resources for
which the user is authorized are displayed to the user. The webtop is customizable based
on a user’s identity, context, and group membership. Webtops can be set up with SAML-
enabled SSO to deliver a seamless user experience.
Application tunnels
If an endpoint doesn’t comply with your defined security posture policy, an application
tunnel can provide access to a particular application without the security risk of opening
a full network access tunnel. For example, mobile users can simply click their Microsoft
Outlook clients to get secure access to their email, no matter where they are in the world.
Application tunnels are also WAN optimized to efficiently deliver content to users.
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Typically, a user opens a Java applet such as IBM terminal emulator, and it will open up
network connections on arbitrary ports, which may be blocked by firewalls and might use
SSL to secure the traffic. This makes the applet unusable by remote employees. With
Java rewrite, BIG-IP APM transforms or “patches” server Java applets in real time so that
clients that execute the applets will connect back through BIG-IP APM using SSL over an
authenticated BIG-IP APM session. With BIG-IP APM, rewrite once and store patched Java
in RAM cache, so there is no need to rewrite every time.
With the efficient, multi-solution BIG-IP platform, you can add application security without
sacrificing access performance. BIG-IP APM and BIG-IP® Application Security Manager™
(ASM) run together on the BIG-IP LTM appliance to protect applications from attack while
providing flexible, layered, and granular access control. Attacks are filtered immediately to
ensure application availability and security and an optimum user experience. This integrated
solution helps you ensure compliance with local and regional regulations, including PCI DSS,
so you can minimize fine payouts and protect your organization from data loss. And since
there is no need to introduce a new appliance to the network, you save costs with an all-in-
one solution.
There are two options for F5 Secure Web Gateway Services: a URL filtering service and
a secure web gateway service. Each is available as a one-year or three-year subscription.
The URL filtering service from F5 controls access to websites or web applications based
on the categories and risks associated with the intended URLs. The secure web gateway
service includes the URL filtering capability, but it also detects and blocks malware or
malicious scripts hosted inside public web pages by scanning return HTTP/HTTPS traffic.
URL filtering
URL filtering helps to ensure compliance with industry and government regulations, as well
as with corporate-acceptable Internet use policies. Using the extensive Websense database,
URL filtering in F5 Secure Web Gateway Services controls access to websites and hundreds
of web-based applications, protocols, and videos. Secure Web Gateway Services also
blocks search results based on your applicable security policy, preventing the display of
offensive search results or images. URL filtering is customizable, and it helps reduce and
mitigate corporate exposure to web-based threats and data leakage.
F5 Secure Web Gateway Services leverages the powerful Websense URL categorization
engine and database that is constantly classifying tens of millions of URLs across the Internet
and the web. URL categorization applies real-time classification information against known
web pages, as well as assessing new web pages and URLs. It uses advanced machine
learning, quickly assessing web pages based on content; this minimizes false positives
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and improves URL classification. URL categorization is contextually aware, using multiple
characteristics to assess and determine web page and URL reputation.
Web security
Secure Web Gateway Services also detects and blocks malware or malicious scripts within
web pages by scanning return HTTP/HTTPS traffic. This is accomplished via the robust
malware engine from Websense, which contains over 10,000 web malware analytics, and
a collection of sophisticated signature and heuristic detection engines that identify and
eradicate general and specialized threats. Secure Web Gateway Services incorporates
powerful analytics that, when combined, conduct content-based and contextual evaluations
for more effective detection of advanced persistent threats (APTs). It uses the content-
based and contextual data gathered from web pages, combined with information from its
web malware analytics, to make informed decisions and detect patterns that indicate the
presence of APTs and other complex attacks that may evade other, standalone analytics.
Additionally, when a remote user accesses the web through a per-app VPN tunnel in
BIG-IP APM, the user’s web access also should be regulated, with enforced authentication,
URL filtering, and malware scanning based on the same applied security policy as if the user
had attempted any other web access. F5 Secure Web Gateway Services accomplishes this,
ensuring comprehensive, coordinated web security, regardless of user access.
Using the information culled from this data, the solution identifies and locates complex online
threat trends. Secure Web Gateway Services can assess whether or not a popular website
has been hijacked; monitor viral sites and content; and use news and social media topics to
uncover more popular websites, viral sites, and content to assess. It takes advantage of Big
Data analysis, mobile app permissions and profiles, and cloud sandbox data to predict and
identify new, fast-emerging online threats. Secure Web Gateway Services synchronizes with
Websense’s cloud-based threat intelligence on a user-configurable schedule.
User identification
F5 Secure Web Gateway Services can map and track user identity to network addresses
while enabling transparent user-based security policies through the F5 User Identity
Agent. The F5 User Identity Agent runs on a Windows-based server, and it pulls information
from Active Directory domain controllers. The F5 User Identity Agent enables Secure
Web Gateway Services to fully track a user’s web activity by user identity. Secure Web
Gateway Services also allows the user’s identity or group to determine whether SSL
websites are bypassed or not allowed, enabling more granular control for access to SSL
encrypted websites.
The graphical user interface within Secure Web Gateway Services allows system
administrators to view and export various security analytics reports. These reports
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empower administrators with total visibility of outbound and inbound web traffic, Internet
use, and policy enforcement. Secure Web Gateway Services logs users’ Internet activities
in forensic detail, including timestamps, source/destination IP address, user name, URLs,
blocking status, and more. Logs may be published through the F5 log publisher to well-
known security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, including solutions
from ArcSight and Splunk. Logs from Secure Web Gateway Services also may be
automatically uploaded to a Splunk cloud-based logging service and processed with
a specially designed and implemented Splunk application, enabling the generation of
analytic reports.
F5 Secure Web Gateway Services may be flexibly deployed through explicit proxy, with
the BIG-IP APM device running Secure Web Gateway Services installed anywhere in a
network using a single switch port connection, requiring no disruption or network wiring
changes. Secure Web Gateway Services also may be deployed through inline transparent
proxy, with the forward proxy configured to intercept all HTTP and HTTPS traffic
transparently, reducing the need for network configuration changes.
Flexible deployment
BIG-IP APM can be deployed in three different ways to meet a variety of access
needs. It may be deployed as an add-on module for BIG-IP LTM to protect public-facing
applications; it can be delivered as a standalone appliance; and it can run on a BIG-IP
LTM Virtual Edition to deliver flexible application access in virtualized environments.
Virtual desktop deployments have to scale to meet the needs of thousands of users and
hundreds of connections per second. BIG-IP APM includes native support for Microsoft
Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), native secure web proxy support for Citrix XenApp and
XenDesktop, and PCoIP for VMware Horizon View. In addition, BIG-IP APM can pass
down a Java-based applet that acts as a Java RDP client and executes in the client’s
browser. The Java RDP client is a quick virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) option as
requirements dictate and is a secure remote access solution for Mac and Linux users.
The highly scalable, high performance application delivery capabilities of BIG-IP APM
provide simplified access and control to users in hosted virtual desktop environments.
In addition, BIG-IP APM integrates the Microsoft RDP protocol, enabling Microsoft RDP
access without the need to install client-side components or run Java. BIG-IP APM
enables the availability and use of Microsoft RDP on new platforms, such as Apple iOS
and Google Android devices, and it also enables native RDP clients on non-Windows
platforms such as Apple Mac OS and Linux, where previously only a Java-based client
was supported. With this capability, F5 continues to deliver simplified, broad VDI support.
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Credential caching
BIG-IP APM provides credential caching and proxy services for single sign-on, so
users only need to sign on once to access approved sites and applications. As users
navigate, sign-on credentials are delivered to web applications, saving time and
increasing productivity.
BIG-IP APM access offers SSL offload at network speeds and supports up to 3,000
logins per second. For organizations with an ever-growing base of web application
users, BIG-IP APM scales quickly and cost-effectively.
BIG-IP APM use is based on user sessions, with two types of sessions: access sessions
and concurrent connection use (CCU) sessions. The access session type applies to
authentication sessions, VDI, and similar situations. CCU is applicable for network
access, such as full VPN access, application tunnels, or web access, for example. The
F5 platforms supporting BIG-IP APM (the BIG-IP platforms and VIPRION chassis) are able
to support exponentially more access sessions than CCU sessions in use cases such as
authentication, SAML, SSO, Secure Web Gateway Services, forward proxy, and more.
This means that if you intend to use BIG-IP APM for authentication, VDI, and the like,
the number of sessions supported on a VIPRION platform can be up to 2 million sessions,
and a BIG-IP platform can support up to 500,000 sessions.
BIG-IP APM is available on a chassis platform and on the BIG-IP 5200v, 7200v,
and 10200v appliances, and it supports a Virtual Clustered Multiprocessing (vCMP®)
environment. The vCMP hypervisor provides the ability to run multiple instances
of BIG-IP APM. This allows for multi-tenancy and effective separation. With vCMP,
network administrators can virtualize while achieving a higher level of redundancy
and control.
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VIPRION Platforms
BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager and Access Policy Manager are also available on the modular VIPRION
system. This chassis and blade architecture enables simple scalability as your Application Delivery
Network grows. See the VIPRION Datasheet for details.
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F5 Global Services
F5 Global Services offers world-class support, training, and consulting to help you get the
most from your F5 investment. Whether it’s providing fast answers to questions, training
internal teams, or handling entire implementations from design to deployment, F5 Global
Services can help ensure your applications are always secure, fast, and reliable. For more
information about F5 Global Services, contact [email protected] or visit f5.com/services.
Simplified Licensing
Meeting your applications’ needs in a dynamic environment has never been easier.
F5’s Good, Better, Best provides you with the flexibility to provision advanced modules
on-demand, at the best value.
• Decide what solutions are right for your application’s environment with F5’s reference
architectures.
• Provision the modules needed to run your applications with F5’s Good, Better, Best
offerings.
• Implement complete application flexibility with the ability to deploy your modules on
a virtual or physical platform.
(Note: F5 Good, Better, Best does not include F5 Secure Web Gateway Services.)
More Information
To learn more about BIG-IP APM, visit f5.com to find these and other resources.
Product overviews
BIG‑IP Access Policy Manager
White paper
Secure Mobile Access to Corporate Applications
Technical brief
Secure iPhone Access to Corporate Web Applications
Case study
Security Company Keeps Systems Protected and Apps Accessible
Video
Web Application Access Management for BIG-IP LTM
F5 Networks, Inc. 401 Elliott Avenue West, Seattle, WA 98119 888-882-4447 www.f5.com
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