Referring to next-generation firewalls as “traditional” may sound like a black joke.
However, with the wider adoption of HTTP/3 and QUIC, the scope of encryption has expanded to the point where even DNS traffic is encrypted. Under such conditions, concerns are emerging that techniques such as URL filtering and FQDN-based routing may no longer function as expected.
When NGINX was acquired by F5 in 2019, I initially assumed that appliance-based load balancers were approaching the end of their lifecycle. For a moment, it seemed reasonable to think that the era of BIG-IP would continue for quite some time. More recently, however, discussions around freenginx have surfaced, adding another layer of nuance to that assumption.
As was also the case with Netscreen, the interpretation of corporate acquisitions and related developments can vary significantly depending on the reader’s professional background. This highlights the importance of being someone who can read and interpret such information carefully—particularly as an engineer, but not only as one.