Manual Chapter : Introduction to the BIG-IP SFC lightweight controller

Applies To:

  • BIG-IP LTM

    21.0.0, 17.5.1, 17.5.0, 17.1.3, 17.1.2, 17.1.1, 17.1.0, 17.0.0, 16.1.6, 16.1.5, 16.1.4, 16.1.3, 16.1.2, 16.1.1, 16.1.0, 16.0.1, 16.0.0, 15.1.10, 15.1.9, 15.1.8, 15.1.7, 15.1.6, 15.1.5, 15.1.4, 15.1.3, 15.1.2, 15.1.1, 15.1.0, 15.0.1, 15.0.0, 14.1.5, 14.1.4, 14.1.3, 14.1.2, 14.1.0, 14.0.1, 14.0.0

Updated Date: 07/07/2026

Introduction to the BIG-IP SFC lightweight controller

Technology organizations today are becoming increasingly interested in transitioning from a traditional traffic steering Gi-LAN architecture to an architecture based on network service header (NSH) service function chaining. In response to this interest, F5 has enhanced the BIG-IP system to operate as a lightweight Network Function Virtualization (NFV) Service Function Chaining (SFC) controller.

A lightweight NFV SFC controller is a BIG-IP system that uses network service headers to implement and control NFV service chaining on a group of network devices, without the full set of features that would be required to compete with other industry software-defined networking (SDN) controller solutions.