Application Delivery & Load Balancing
Application delivery infrastructure — load balancers, WAF, and ADC — is treated as a black box until it causes an outage, fails a security audit, or blocks a cloud migration.
Our Approach
Design and optimise the full ADC stack — LTM, WAF, GSLB, and SSL/TLS — as a first-class infrastructure layer with clear operational ownership, security baselines, and documented upgrade paths.
What This Service Covers
Application delivery and load balancing consulting for organizations running F5 BIG-IP, Citrix NetScaler/ADC, A10 ADC, or NGINX at scale — or planning to migrate between platforms.
Engagements cover LTM virtual server and pool design, WAF policy development and tuning, iRule development and audit, SSL/TLS strategy and offloading, GSLB and DNS-based failover design, ADC platform migration planning, and operational readiness for teams inheriting complex ADC estates.
Scope areas
F5 BIG-IP LTM architecture Virtual server design — Standard, Performance Layer 4, FastL4, and FastHTTP profiles. Pool and node configuration, health monitor design, persistence profile selection. SNAT and NAT strategy. Route domain design for multi-tenancy. Partition and administrative role design.
WAF policy design and tuning F5 BIG-IP ASM/AWAF and XC WAF policy development. Signature tuning to reduce false positives without compromising coverage. Bot defence profile configuration. DDoS protection layer. Integration with SIEM for security event visibility. WAF for PCI DSS 6.4.x and ISO 27001 compliance alignment.
iRule development and audit iRule review for performance, security, and correctness. Development of new iRules for custom traffic steering, content manipulation, and authentication offload. Migration from iRules to Local Traffic Policies where appropriate.
SSL/TLS strategy SSL offloading and bridging design. Certificate lifecycle management. Cipher suite hardening and TLS 1.2/1.3 migration. Client SSL and Server SSL profile design. OCSP stapling and mutual TLS (mTLS) for API security.
GSLB and DNS-based load balancing F5 DNS (GTM) architecture — Wide IP, pool, and data centre design. Health monitoring for GSLB. Disaster recovery and active-passive/active-active topology design. Integration with external DNS providers.
ADC platform migration Citrix NetScaler/ADC to F5 BIG-IP migration planning. Legacy ADC to NGINX or cloud-native load balancer migration. Feature mapping, configuration conversion, and phased cutover planning. Risk assessment and rollback design.
Citrix NetScaler / ADC Virtual server, service group, and content switching policy design. Rewrite and responder policy development. SSL and authentication offload. NetScaler Gateway design for remote access.
Delivery Models
Remote Consultation
Architecture review, design decision support, iRule review, or migration planning sessions. Half-day or full-day blocks. Deliverable: written findings and recommendations.
WAF Tuning Engagement (Fixed Scope)
Structured WAF policy review and tuning. False positive analysis, signature adjustment, and bot policy review. Typically 1–2 weeks.
Remote Support Retainer
Monthly hours for ongoing ADC advisory — change reviews, new virtual server design, certificate renewal planning, security policy updates, and pre-audit checks.
Engineer Basis (Project)
Full ADC design or migration engagement: current state review, target architecture, configuration design, migration plan, and operational runbooks. Remote-led; your team executes. Typical scope: 3–8 weeks.
Typical Engagement Formats
| Format | Best for | Typical Duration |
|---|---|---|
| ADC Architecture Review | Validate or harden an existing F5 or NetScaler design | 1–2 weeks |
| WAF Policy Design & Tuning | New WAF deployment or existing policy hardening | 1–3 weeks |
| GSLB / DR Design | DNS-based load balancing and failover architecture | 1–2 weeks |
| ADC Migration Planning | NetScaler to F5 or legacy to cloud-native | 2–4 weeks |
| Retainer Advisory | Ongoing ADC and WAF support | Monthly |
Platforms and Tools
F5 BIG-IP LTM, ASM/AWAF, XC (Distributed Cloud), DNS/GTM, iRules, iApps, AS3; Citrix NetScaler / ADC; A10 ADC; NGINX; HAProxy; AWS ALB/NLB; Azure Application Gateway; GCP Cloud Load Balancing.