Based on CNCF’s Istio project, Aspen Mesh enables service providers migrating from 4G virtualized network functions (VNF) to the service-based architecture (SBA) of 5G, which relies on a microservice infrastructure.
Security should be ensured at all layers and work together with new clusters when introducing services running on top of a microservices infrastructure. It is paramount for all new points of exposure to be visible, which aids in pin-pointing security threats.
Aspen Mesh is deployed by a service provider as an SBA service mesh building block for 5G SA deployments. It may also be deployed by a service provider in conjunction with F5 BIG-IP Next Service Proxy for Kubernetes (SPK) for legacy 4G or 5G non-standalone (NSA) deployments in transition to a standalone 5G deployment.
For highly regulated businesses where data ownership and security are prioritized, and where legacy services maybe in transition.
A microservice deployment platform for HA and DR. Deploy workloads requiring high availability or disaster recovery capability.
Easily integrate data and services across various cloud-native architectures. Integrate security and visibility for seamless deployments.
Deploy a single cluster, multi-cluster, or multi-cloud deployment to provide services to multiple tenants, each isolated from each other.
Aspen Mesh is a full featured Istio-based service mesh with 24/7 support and is secure by default. It also includes several capabilities which are not found in open source Istio, as detailed below.
Provides traffic control and policy enforcement.
Configuration provides strict security capability out of the box.
Supports native, end-to-end dual-stack networking across the service mesh.
Enables service-mesh traffic capture and visibility.
Granular certificate management for service mesh and other products.
Makes installations and upgrades easier
FQDN and SPIFFE support. Eases 4G VNF to 5G CNF migration.
Industry support of Aspen Mesh traffic format.
F5 Aspen Mesh can be flexibly deployed on Kubernetes cloud-native infrastructure.
F5’s 5G infrastructure solutions combine powerful tools for managing and securing traffic into and within containerized networks, providing the tools service providers need to modernize their network infrastructure.
Read the overview
