Summary: With Big-IP Version 9, F5 has moved beyond Layer 4-7 switching to provide services such as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) acceleration, TCP offload and optimization, compression, rate shaping, and protocol sanitization features we`ve seen the last couple of years in Web front-end appliances from rivals such as Array Networks Inc., NetScaler Inc. and Redline Networks Inc. By Andrew Garcia, eWEEK