F5 Networks Inc. looks to harnessing the power of multi-cloud to ensure apps work faster, safer and smarter. As new deployments in and across public and private clouds continue to increase, the company, which was recently named a ‘Leader’ in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Web Application Firewalls (WAF), foresees more ‘as a service’ conversations in the ASEAN as businesses prepare for the multi-cloud environment.
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F5’s latest State of Application Delivery (SOAD) report revealed that 89 percent of respondents leverage multiple clouds for their workloads as businesses look to avoid vendor lock-in and choose the best cloud applications, platforms and infrastructure offerings to create the best possible business solution.
“With the emergence of cloud-based applications as a crucial tool in enabling speed, scale and flexibility, multi-cloud is undoubtedly the fast-approaching future of cloud-dependent businesses,” says Michael Quek, the new regional VP for sales in ASEAN for F5 Networks.
The SOAD report further revealed that multi-clouds enable firms to extract best-in-class services from each cloud provider while mitigating the risk of downtime or data loss resulting from a catastrophic disruption at any single cloud service provider.
While simple in concept, a multi-cloud strategy brings its own set of challenges to the table, with the main issue being that every cloud is different, be it in terms of programming interfaces or security policy instrumentation. Moreover, the specificity of each cloud makes domain-specific knowledge and expertise applicable only to that cloud.
According to Quek, the key is to abstract cloud-independent functions so that they can be managed across multiple cloud environments. It is also important to independently govern application services that require deep domain expertise—including security, availability and identity management.
“We have developed a series of tools that allow complete control of application service delivery through automation frameworks while also giving developers the ability to quickly and reliably introduce proven, enterprise-grade application services in any environment,” Quek says on the role of F5 in the shift to the multi-cloud.
Besides the recent recognition from Gartner, F5 continues to empower partners and customers to navigate application delivery challenges toward ensuring the delivery of seamless user experience and engagement.
The company’s 2020 Digital Horoscope emphasizes the same: that anticipating what customers need and when they need it will be the new normal.
