F5 BIG-IP DDoS Hybrid Defender vs. Akamai Prolexic

Protect your network from DDoS threats across both the network and application layers by implementing a solution that provides the necessary flexibility and scalability for inline, out-of-band, and hybrid setups. Traditional DDoS mitigation tactics typically focus on a narrow range of attack vectors, resulting in significant limitations: strategies such as black-holing and rate-limiting can inadvertently disrupt legitimate users during network layer (or flood) attacks. Furthermore, these approaches often overlook SSL traffic and are vulnerable based on their network placement during application layer assaults. On-premises defenses can quickly become ineffective if WAN bandwidth saturation obstructs Internet connectivity, leaving your network exposed. Fortunately, the F5 BIG-IP DDoS Hybrid Defender emerges as a superior protective measure, recognized as the only solution that delivers comprehensive multi-layered defense against both network and advanced application attacks. It offers full SSL decryption, anti-bot capabilities, and sophisticated detection methods, all within a single appliance for streamlined operation. This all-encompassing strategy not only fortifies security but also maintains a smooth user experience, even as threat landscapes continue to evolve and become more complex. Ultimately, investing in such a robust solution is crucial for safeguarding your digital assets against today’s sophisticated DDoS threats.

Akamai Prolexic is an enterprise DDoS protection platform for defending networks, applications, and internet-facing infrastructure against high-volume and sophisticated distributed denial-of-service attacks. Organizations can deploy Prolexic as an always-on or on-demand cloud service, an on-premises solution powered by Corero, or a hybrid configuration combining cloud and local protection. The service routes incoming network traffic through its defense infrastructure and applies proactive or customized mitigation controls to identify potentially malicious activity. Attack traffic is filtered before reaching protected systems, while legitimate traffic is delivered to its intended destination to help prevent outages and performance degradation. Prolexic operates 32 global anycast scrubbing centers with more than 20 Tbps of dedicated DDoS defense capacity and is supported by Akamai's network capacity of more than 1 Pbps. Dynamic mitigation controls can scale protection across IPv4 and IPv6 traffic flows, while Prolexic Network Cloud Firewall provides network-wide ACL and firewall rules. Prolexic over Akamai Direct Connect provides another connectivity option, creating a direct and private connection between customer origins and Akamai while supporting large traffic packets through GRE tunnels. Akamai offers a 100% Prolexic platform availability SLA and an industry-leading zero-second mitigation SLA, along with 24/7/365 support and optional managed SOC services. More than 225 frontline SOCC defenders support the service and can work with organizations before, during, and after DDoS incidents. Akamai states that Prolexic's proactive mitigation controls stop more than 98% of attacks immediately and that the platform has protected customers against some of the largest and most sophisticated DDoS attacks recorded on the internet.