F5 Launches BIG-IP v21.0 to Power App Delivery and Security in the AI Era

Most safe launch of BIG-IP gives AI information supply and safety layer for contemporary workloads and considerably improves management airplane efficiency

F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) immediately launched BIG-IP v21.0, giving clients a unified method to app supply, safety, and scale in the AI period. This main launch extends the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) with a purpose-built supply engine for utility workloads—lowering operational friction, accelerating information motion, and enhancing efficiency and resiliency throughout hybrid and multicloud environments. Introducing the subsequent era of app companies innovation, BIG-IP v21.0 is now typically out there, and F5 encourages clients to start planning migrations to reap the benefits of its AI-ready platform enhancements.

AI-driven functions have essentially totally different supply necessities. Data should transfer with a lot larger throughput—throughout storage, compute, clusters, and clouds—whereas sustaining safety and low latency. However, most enterprises are nonetheless managing fragmented supply stacks and sprawling infrastructures that have been by no means designed for AI information volumes. According to F5’s State of Application Strategy Report 2025, 94% of organizations deploy apps throughout a number of environments, which implies complexity isn’t an edge case—it’s the norm.

“BIG-IP is now constructed for the AI period,” mentioned Kunal Anand, Chief Product Officer at F5. “We ship the onerous a part of AI at scale: shifting information to and from fashions with velocity, integrity, and management. And we do it with the full BIG-IP stack, from supply to safety, whereas boosting efficiency and throughput. Customers can run their most important AI workloads with confidence.”

BIG-IP v21.0 introduces particular product-level capabilities that straight advance AI information supply, safety, and scale:

• AI information supply enhancements: Optimize efficiency and simplify configuration with new S3 information storage integrations. Use instances embody safe ingestion for fine-tuning and batch inference, high-throughput retrieval for RAG and embeddings era, policy-driven mannequin artifact distribution with observability, and managed egress with constant safety and compliance.
• Model Context Protocol (MCP) assist for AI site visitors: Accelerate and scale AI workloads with assist for MCP that allows seamless communication between AI fashions, functions, and information sources. This enhances efficiency, secures connections, and streamlines deployment for AI workloads.
• Modernized management airplane efficiency: Boost reliability and speed up configuration modifications throughout giant hybrid portfolios with management airplane enhancements. BIG-IP v21.0 delivers optimized management airplane efficiency, enabling larger throughput and sooner operations essential for high-scale AI deployments the place configuration velocity issues.

“AI-driven workloads are evolving quickly and accelerating demand for safe, high-performance utility supply throughout more and more advanced hybrid and multicloud environments,” mentioned Paul Nicholson, Research Vice President, Cloud and Datacenter Networks, IDC. “F5’s BIG-IP v21.0 accelerates enterprise AI initiatives by optimizing information supply with S3 profiles, including Model Context Protocol assist, and introducing system and safety enhancements for extra environment friendly operations.”

BIG-IP v21.0 permits Platform Ops, InternetOps, and cloud groups to standardize on one supply layer throughout environments, whereas giving enterprises the efficiency, management, and observability wanted to scale AI with confidence. Additionally, F5 has invested closely in safety upgrades to make BIG-IP v21.0 the firm’s most safe launch but. Maintaining distinctive software program high quality with a give attention to safety will proceed as F5’s highest precedence in this and subsequent BIG-IP releases. BIG-IP v21.0 can even add assist for the lately introduced CrowdStrike Falcon integration by the finish of the quarter.

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