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Services

Remote F5 and web infrastructure expertise, scoped to your needs

Choose the help you need, from one-off troubleshooting sessions to upgrade planning and configuration reviews. Every engagement starts with an agreed scope and a quote.

How our services work

shieldlayer Security provides remote technical consultation and guidance within the agreed service scope. Customers retain control of their infrastructure and production environments. Any additional access or activity requires separate explicit authorization.

F5 BIG-IP LTM Support

Remote, one-to-one technical guidance for BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager. We work through how traffic reaches your applications, why it sometimes doesn't, and how to configure it with confidence. You stay in control of your devices throughout.

Common problems we address

  • The virtual server shows available, but the application doesn't load
  • Pool members marked down by a health monitor even though the server looks fine
  • SSL/TLS handshake failures, certificate chain errors or SNI mix-ups
  • Users losing their session because persistence isn't behaving as expected
  • Intermittent resets, timeouts or HTTP 5xx errors
  • An iRule that may or may not be doing what it was written to do
  • High availability settings that you'd like a second opinion on

What the consultation includes

  • Review of the configuration objects involved: virtual servers, pools, monitors, profiles, persistence, SNAT and iRules
  • A guided troubleshooting session over video call, with your team operating your own devices
  • Interpretation of the logs, tmsh output and packet captures you share
  • Load balancing, monitor and profile configuration recommendations

Expected deliverables

  • A written session summary with findings and recommended changes
  • The checks and commands used, so your team can repeat them next time

Who should consider it

  • IT teams who run BIG-IP but don't have an F5 specialist in-house
  • Agencies and managed service providers supporting clients on F5
  • SaaS and platform teams publishing applications through BIG-IP
Request a consultation Scope and quote confirmed before any work starts.

F5 BIG-IP WAF Support

Guidance for BIG-IP ASM and Advanced WAF policies. We help you understand why requests are being flagged or blocked, separate real attacks from false positives, and tune policies with narrowly scoped changes rather than broad exceptions.

Common problems we address

  • Legitimate users, forms or API calls being blocked
  • A policy stuck in Transparent mode because no one is sure it's safe to block
  • Event logs and violation details that are hard to interpret
  • Learning suggestions piling up with no clear way to decide on them
  • Attack signatures left in staging indefinitely
  • A customer quoting a support ID and asking why they were blocked

What the consultation includes

  • A walkthrough of the relevant requests in your WAF event logs
  • Identifying the violation behind each block: attack signature, parameter, URL, file type, HTTP protocol compliance or JSON/XML content
  • Recommendations for narrowly scoped adjustments instead of disabling protections globally
  • Guidance on staging, learning suggestions and enforcement readiness
  • A WAF configuration review, where included in scope

Expected deliverables

  • False-positive findings with recommended policy adjustments
  • A clear note on any change that would reduce protection, so you can decide knowingly

Who should consider it

  • Teams who inherited a WAF policy and need to understand it
  • Organisations preparing to move a policy from Transparent to Blocking
  • MSPs and agencies handling WAF-related customer complaints
Request a consultation Scope and quote confirmed before any work starts.

F5 BIG-IP Upgrade Assistance

Planning and remote technical guidance for BIG-IP software upgrades, scheduled around your preferred maintenance window. Your team performs the upgrade on your devices; we help you prepare, follow along, verify the result and troubleshoot anything unexpected.

Common problems we address

  • Unsure which target version is supported on your hardware platform or Virtual Edition
  • Unclear upgrade path, prerequisites or licensing considerations
  • Concern about how to roll back if something goes wrong
  • Issues after an upgrade: configuration load errors, provisioning changes or different behaviour

What the consultation includes

  • Pre-upgrade review: current version, platform, provisioned modules, licence service check date, disk space and features to check against the release notes
  • Backup guidance: UCS archives, master key considerations and storing backups off the device
  • A procedure review for your environment, based on F5's official documentation for your versions
  • Live remote guidance during your maintenance window, as agreed in scope
  • A post-upgrade verification checklist and help troubleshooting upgrade-related issues

Expected deliverables

  • A written upgrade plan and verification checklist
  • A post-upgrade summary, where included in the agreed scope

Who should consider it

  • Teams with BIG-IP devices on versions approaching end of support
  • Organisations that upgrade rarely and want a careful second pair of eyes
  • MSPs planning upgrades across several customer environments
Standalone devices

Our standard upgrade guidance covers a single BIG-IP device, from planning and backups through to post-upgrade checks.

HA pairs and device groups

Upgrading devices in a high-availability group needs extra planning around upgrade order, failover and configuration sync. We assess HA upgrade requests case by case during scoping and will tell you clearly what we can and can't cover before you book.

Request a consultation Scope and quote confirmed before any work starts.

Infrastructure Troubleshooting

Structured troubleshooting guidance for application delivery and connectivity problems. We help you isolate the fault methodically, layer by layer, using the configuration, logs and captures you already have.

Common problems we address

  • An application that works from some networks or locations but not others
  • SSL/TLS errors between clients, load balancers and servers
  • Timeouts and connection resets with no obvious cause
  • DNS or routing questions affecting how users reach an application
  • A configuration change that broke something, and no one is sure what

What the consultation includes

  • Fault isolation working through the network, transport, TLS and application layers
  • Analysis of packet captures, logs and configuration you share
  • Hypotheses ranked by likelihood and tested together during the session
  • Clear, prioritised next steps

Expected deliverables

  • A troubleshooting summary: what was checked, what was found and what to do next

Who should consider it

  • Small IT teams handling an issue outside their day-to-day expertise
  • Developers and DevOps teams debugging how traffic reaches their application
  • Agencies needing a second opinion on a client's hosting problem
Where we're strongest

Our depth is greatest where F5 BIG-IP and web application delivery are involved. For other platforms we'll tell you upfront whether we're the right fit, rather than learn on your time.

Request a consultation Scope and quote confirmed before any work starts.

RCA Assistance

Help reconstructing what happened during an incident, identifying root and contributing causes, and writing it up clearly so the same problem is less likely to happen again.

Common problems we address

  • An outage was resolved, but no one is sure what actually caused it
  • Management or a customer needs a root cause analysis document
  • The same symptoms keep coming back after each fix

What the consultation includes

  • Timeline reconstruction from the logs, tickets, change records and captures you provide
  • Root and contributing-factor analysis
  • Recommendations for prevention and earlier detection
  • Review of your draft RCA, or help writing one

Expected deliverables

  • An RCA document or review notes, depending on the agreed scope

Who should consider it

  • Teams who need to explain an incident to leadership or customers
  • MSPs producing RCAs for their clients
Evidence first

An RCA is only as good as the evidence behind it. Where logs or captures are missing, we'll say so clearly rather than speculate.

Request a consultation Scope and quote confirmed before any work starts.

Security Configuration Review

A structured review of your BIG-IP LTM/WAF and related web infrastructure configuration. We look for misconfigurations, risky defaults and drift, then give you prioritised recommendations you can act on.

Common problems we address

  • A configuration that has grown over years without a review
  • WAF policies left in Transparent mode or carrying broad exceptions
  • Outdated TLS settings or certificates close to expiry
  • Management interfaces reachable from more places than intended
  • Unused objects and rules no one wants to touch

What the consultation includes

  • Review of the configuration exports you provide, sanitised where needed
  • Checks across TLS profiles, management-plane access, WAF enforcement and exceptions, logging and HA consistency
  • Findings ranked by risk and effort
  • A walkthrough call to discuss the results

Expected deliverables

  • A technical findings report with prioritised recommendations

Who should consider it

  • Organisations preparing for an audit or customer security questionnaire
  • Teams who inherited an F5 environment
  • Businesses that want an independent view before making changes
What this isn't

This is a configuration review based on information you provide. It is not a penetration test, vulnerability scan or offensive security assessment.

Request a consultation Scope and quote confirmed before any work starts.

Not sure which service fits?

Describe the problem in your own words and choose “Not sure yet”. We'll recommend the right scope, and tell you honestly if we're not the right fit.

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