F5 Big IP R4800 Appliance

F5 BIG-IP r4800 appliance: High-End Application Delivery Platform

The F5 BIG-IP r4800 is a top-tier application delivery platform designed for midsize enterprise data centers. As the flagship model in the r4000 series, the r4800 builds on the platform shared with the F5 r4600 but delivers decisive performance advantages. It features a dedicated hardware chip for compression tasks (30Gbps), freeing up CPU resources entirely for critical business processing and ensuring stable performance under high load. It also offers a 50% boost in SSL performance (45K vs. 30K TPS) and allocates all 16 vCPU cores for business processing (compared to the r4600’s 12 cores).
These enhancements mean the r4800 can handle mixed traffic more efficiently.
Here are the key highlights:

1. 50G Application Throughput
Up to 50 Gbps L4 and 40 Gbps L7 throughput for robust traffic handling.

2. Hardware Compression and SSL
30 Gbps compression and 45K SSL TPS for efficient content delivery.

3. High-Speed Interfaces
4 × 25G/10G SFP28/SFP+ and 4 × 10G copper ports for modern data center connectivity.

4. Enterprise Reliability
Supports redundant power supplies and HA clustering for high availability.

5. Full Core Performance
64GB memory and 16 vCPU cores for handling complex traffic.

The r4800 is ideal for mid-to-large enterprises with demanding traffic needs, especially in online transactions, SaaS services, and API gateways.

What are the main differences between the r4600 and r4800, and how should I choose?
The r4600 and r4800 share the same physical platform but differ in core performance and processing methods. The main differences are:

• Performance Tier: The r4800 offers higher throughput (50G vs 30G) and SSL processing capability (45K vs 30K TPS).
• Compression Method: The r4800 uses hardware compression with a dedicated chip, while the r4600 uses software compression relying on its powerful main CPU.
• CPU Core Allocation: The r4800 allocates more vCPU cores for business processing (16 vs 12).

When should I choose the r4800 instead of directly upgrading to the r5000 series?
This is a choice between “performance” and “scale.” If your core bottleneck is processing efficiency and encryption/compression capability, but your network interface needs are still within the 10G/25G range, then the r4800 is an extremely cost-effective choice. The r5000 series’ core advantage is providing higher-density 40G/100G ports and stronger overall throughput, suitable for large-scale data center network aggregation. In short, choose the r4800 when you need a “faster” engine; consider the r5000 series when you need a “wider” highway.

Does the r4800 support high availability (HA) and virtualization (vCMP)?
Yes. The r4800 fully supports standard high availability (HA) cluster deployment to ensure business continuity. It also supports F5’s vCMP virtualization technology, which can virtualize a single physical device into multiple independent ADC instances (up to 2) according to your needs. However, considering its powerful performance, it is usually used as a high-performance standalone device or HA pair.