A10 Thunder ADC for Advanced Load Balancing - 10 Gbps

My main use case for A10 Networks Thunder ADC  is web application load balancing. If I have multiple web servers hosting the same application, I perform load balancing. I do SSL offloading for HTTPS encryption, which can be CPU-intensive. I use it for high availability, global server load balancing, DDoS protection, API gateway, microservices, Kubernetes  Ingress, telecom 5G networks, active-active data center design, multi-cloud traffic steering, and similar applications.

I use load balancing extensively with A10 Networks Thunder ADC . For example, with A10 Networks Thunder ADC  load balancing, the requests are distributed. If a server fails, the health check detects the failure. There are different kinds of load balancing, including round-robin, least connections, and weighted load balancing. There is also layer four versus layer seven load balancing. In a real enterprise example, such as a banking application, the customers might go to A10 Networks Thunder ADC  and then be directed to a login application, payment application, or API application. A10 Networks Thunder ADC responsibilities include SSL termination, session persistence, DDoS filtering, health monitoring, and traffic routing.

Mostly, I use A10 Networks Thunder ADC with load balancing and also in a data center. I need an active-active data center design and also use it for security for DDoS protection.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC offers many features. A few are advanced load balancing, which we already discussed. It does layer four and layer seven load balancing. It has extremely high performance. It can do SSL/TLS offloading. It has integrated security features including DDoS protection, web application firewall, DNS firewall, and single sign-on. It can do global server load balancing, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud support, strong automation and DevOps integration, telecom carrier-grade scalability, and multi-tenancy.

The advanced load balancing plus SSL offloading in A10 Networks Thunder ADC directly improves application uptime, speed, scalability, server efficiency, and user experience. I think intelligent load balancing and SSL/TLS offloading for high performance per appliance and built-in security are the best features.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC has impacted my organization positively in many ways. I have worked at many types of companies. Previously, I worked for telecom providers as an ISP. A10 Networks Thunder ADC provided positive impact by handling massive traffic volumes, carrier-grade scalability, DNS optimization, DDoS protection, and reduced latency. I have also worked for a financial institution, which needed high availability, secure transactions, and low downtime. A10 Networks Thunder ADC provided positive impact through SSL acceleration speed, application protection, fast failover, and secure customer sessions.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is quite solid, but there are some issues that I face, particularly with the user interface. A current issue is that the GUI is less polished than competitors. When compared against F5 BIG-IP  or Citrix ADC , the GUI is not as good. The documentation and learning curve are areas that can be improved by A10 Networks. Compared with larger vendors including F5, Cisco, or Palo Alto, A10 has a smaller ecosystem. Although A10 Networks Thunder ADC supports cloud and Kubernetes , many enterprises now expect deeper cloud-native functionality. Improvement areas include Kubernetes Ingress maturity, service mesh integration, and auto-scaling intelligence.

I have worked with A10 Networks Thunder ADC for approximately five years.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is very stable in my experience.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is very scalable.

Customer support for A10 Networks Thunder ADC was good, but it can be improved, as it was not the best.

I can share many specific outcomes and metrics after implementing A10 Networks Thunder ADC. It improved uptime and availability. Before A10 Networks Thunder ADC, a single-server failure meant an outage, but now traffic is automatically redirected to healthy servers. There are also server cost savings because the organization now needs fewer back-end servers and has lower CPU utilization. It has faster application performance and reduced downtime costs.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a great, economical product if you want a smaller ecosystem. I would advise starting with a clear business goal and deploying high availability from day one. Since it can do SSL offloading, I recommend prioritizing SSL offloading and designing health checks carefully. Automation is key, so automate early, keep the configuration simple initially, and plan the capacity properly. Monitor everything and train the operations team. Test failover regularly, use role separation, evaluate your cloud strategy early, focus on operational simplicity, and measure return on investment continuously. My rating for this product is three out of five.

My main use case for A10 Networks Thunder ADC  is to ensure application delivery, security, and high availability.

One specific example of how I use A10 Networks Thunder ADC  for application delivery and security in my environment is by using it for load balancing a public e-commerce website. A10 Networks Thunder ADC  helps with load balancing on my public e-commerce site by ensuring this is critical for maintaining uptime and handling traffic spikes without impacting the customer experience.

I have another important use case for A10 Networks Thunder ADC , which is carrier-grade NAT or CGNAT. I use CGNAT with A10 Networks Thunder ADC for protection from DDoS attacks.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC offers several strong features that make it a very competitive solution. First, they provide advanced Layer 4 or Layer 7 load balancing. Another key feature is SSL offloading and encryption handling. A10 Networks Thunder ADC is also highly scalable and flexible.

Scalability for A10 Networks Thunder ADC shows up in my day-to-day operations during high-traffic events such as Black Friday. One feature I find really powerful and something underrated about A10 Networks Thunder ADC is A-Flex.

Beyond the standard ADC feature, what really stands out to me about A10 Networks Thunder ADC is how customizable, performant, and automated the platform is. A10 Networks Thunder ADC has a significant impact on my organization in several ways. First, it improves application availability and performance. From a security perspective, it helps protect applications against threats such as DDoS attacks. It also has a strong operational impact. In terms of cost, it can lower both CapEx and OpEx.

I chose a rating of eight or nine instead of a perfect ten because there are a few areas that could be improved for A10 Networks Thunder ADC. First, a stronger ecosystem and wider market adoption would definitely help. Second, enhanced integration with third-party tools would be beneficial. The improvements needed are not about fixing major issues, but more about enhancing usability, ecosystem, and integration.

I have been working in my current field for five years.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC is stable.

A10 Networks Thunder ADC's scalability is impressive.

I am not certain about the customer support, but I believe Broadcom handles it.

Before A10 Networks Thunder ADC, we used F5.

I have not seen a return on investment with A10 Networks Thunder ADC, as that is not for me but for another department.

The experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for A10 Networks Thunder ADC is a question for another department, not for me.

Before choosing A10 Networks Thunder ADC, I evaluated other options including F5, NetScaler , Cloudflare , Kemp, NGINX , and other solutions.

The most important advice for others looking into using A10 Networks Thunder ADC is to clearly understand your use case and requirements upfront. I would recommend that you clearly understand your use case and requirements before implementing A10 Networks Thunder ADC. I have given this solution a rating of eight.

According to my understanding, the licensing model and the application availability time in A10 Networks Thunder ADC  provide a good solution for all operation-critical customers, and they might find the high availability feature very useful.

Application load balancing in A10 Networks Thunder ADC  plays a crucial role in improving application reliability during peak periods.

I believe that A10 Networks Thunder ADC  utilizes technology with one of the protocols in its load balancing solutions, and I think it's a great solution that I found in the market. I conducted research and clearly see their licensing model and the technical methodology to connect and maintain high availability, which I think are the major features highlighted in the solution.

DDoS protection is one kind of extra feature in A10 Networks Thunder ADC  solution, but I see that in the inbuilt solution, the data classification part is pending there, creating a gap between the DDoS and the data classification parts. I think that is the main improvement that should be addressed in the next couple of years.

In the Sri Lankan market, we mainly expect a budget-friendly option for physical appliances from A10 Networks Thunder ADC, particularly in the 3GB to 6GB range, while they are currently releasing a hardware appliance for 10G bandwidth throughput. I think that should be improved much better.

Recently, government taxes have increased A10 Networks Thunder ADC prices according to their taxing policies. For the moment, I think we can go with a competitive price, even though sometimes we face a similar price to our competitive products. If that can be adjusted, that would be better.

In the vThunder series of A10 Networks Thunder ADC, they have a perpetual license model and a subscription model, but in the Thunder series, the physical appliance does not have a perpetual license model, mainly operating on the subscription model. I think adding that feature could expand the market. Specifically, I want to highlight that a low number of throughput can be released to at least the APAC region, which will be very useful. At the perimeter level, we don't have access to implement the virtual appliance model and must use a hardware box. Compared to the current release version, we cannot match their budget with a good price, so that is my primary expectation. If there is any chance to launch a box with 3 to 6 throughput, I think that would be better, as we could easily switch to our BFSI and enterprise customers, who have a big pain point in their firewall load balancing. However, the challenge remains that we cannot deploy a virtual appliance there and must go with a physical appliance, so making that adjustment would create a good opportunity to expand the market.

I can give A10 Networks Thunder ADC a rating of 10 out of 10. Their tech support is very responsible, and their response time is very low, providing superb support.

Before A10 Networks Thunder ADC, I handled the WAF  solution. I joined as a product manager for the WAF  solution, and I previously worked for the SI industry in Sri Lanka, where I highlighted that WAF is the main requirement for the Sri Lankan market infrastructure.

I didn't have a chance to capture those areas regarding A10 Networks Thunder ADC caching and compression features. The previously mentioned areas are covered from my requirement gathering and customer meetups.

As per my experience, the vThunder series of A10 Networks Thunder ADC is very easy to deploy, and the cost is also very reliable and justifiable. On the physical appliance side, they have added WAF and all, resulting in a higher cost while ensuring reliability. They guarantee 10-16 years online for that physical appliance, which is very beneficial for the Telco and BFSI side.

For the moment, I haven't had any kind of scenario with A10 Networks Thunder ADC multi-cloud support.

I didn't have a chance to explore A10 Networks Thunder ADC analytics tools.

I can give A10 Networks Thunder ADC an overall rating of nine out of ten as a product.