F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) is rapidly growing its cloud-native application services portfolio with solutions that address a broad range of modern application development use cases with consumption models that resonate no matter where customers may be in their cloud migration journey. Today, the company extends its portfolio with a new delivery model that leverages the AWS SaaS Enablement Framework for its market-leading application services.
F5® Cloud Services provide high-availability, self-service, and fully managed SaaS solutions that are easily provisioned and configured within minutes on AWS. As enterprise-grade offerings, they are designed to support modern deployment scenarios such as cloud-native applications, microservices, and container-based environments. Consumed as a utility through a pay-as-you-go model in the AWS Marketplace, F5 Cloud Services offer predictable pricing, flexibility, and the ability to auto-scale to meet application workload demands.
F5 Cloud Services also deliver foundational security capabilities and will offer additional protections through future services that allow companies to configure and automate defenses for multiple attack vectors. Offering F5 capabilities through a SaaS delivery model provides an extensible framework to deliver additional services as needed over time, and throughout an application’s development and production lifecycle.
The news chimes with recent survey results from market research agency Think Positive, which claim that C-level executives and business leaders in the UAE overwhelmingly agree on cloud computing’s positive and transformative impact.
According to the study, 97% of all UAE respondents believe the cloud can have a positive impact on market share and help to displace competitors. 89% also stated that it can improve brand perception, and 89% praised its capacity to improve innovation. A clear consensus was also reached on the cloud’s potential to enhance the overall customer experience (89%). Furthermore, there was agreement on cloud’s likely starring role in driving major government-led transformation initiatives. 91% believed it would have a notable positive influence in this respect across the UAE, encompassing initiatives like Expo 2020 and the UAE’s Vision 2021.
“Customers are increasingly looking for easy-to-consume, advanced SaaS-based application services for security and application delivery,” said Venu Aravamudan, SVP and General Manager of F5 Cloud Services. “F5’s advanced application delivery and security capabilities will now be delivered as modern, DevOps-centric SaaS solutions aligned with AWS best practices.”
“Using the AWS SaaS Factory and AWS SaaS Enablement Framework, we were able help F5 architect, develop, and deploy their new Cloud Services platform on AWS,” said Terry Wise, VP, WW Partners at AWS. “Customers can now consume F5 solutions in a SaaS model, while enabling developers to innovate without having to worry about managing infrastructure or the underlying code.”
By introducing F5 Cloud Services to the market in a continuous fashion, F5 is prioritizing a repeatable framework that delivers new SaaS offerings as quickly and seamlessly as possible. Secondary DNS Cloud Services are launching today in the AWS Marketplace, with a global server load balancing offer available in preview, and new security capabilities—including web application security protections designed to defend against existing and emerging application threats—coming soon.
F5 Cloud Services also represent a new way of delivering capabilities to a wide range of companies that are looking to conveniently layer application services as needed, taking its cues from the same types of agile development methodologies favored by modern application developers. Expanding on the preview introduced at last year’s AWS re:Invent conference, today’s announcement continues a strategic shift for F5 around innovative offerings best suited for how organizations, from start-ups to large enterprises, are deploying and consuming applications and services in the cloud.
- Enjoy Ultimate Flexibility in a Managed SaaS Offering
F5 Cloud Services have been designed around the ways that modern enterprises are developing and launching applications in the public cloud. With an intuitive user interface for low-touch configurations that can be fully automated via comprehensive declarative APIs, the solution enables developers and DevOps engineers to integrate the power of application services with CI/CD practices for optimized performance throughout the lifecycle of applications.
- Gain Visibility for Actionable Insights and Efficient Services Consumption
Customers enjoy real-time visibility and analytics on usage, consumption, performance, and billing with detailed reporting and visualization tools. This level of clarity provides myriad insights to enhance the way application resources are provisioned, secured, and consumed in an always-available cloud delivery platform.
- Apply Dependable Application Security without Being a Security Expert
F5’s new services are designed to help cloud-first organizations and developers confidently secure their applications so they can stay focused on what apps do best: provide business value. F5 Cloud Services’ growing set of security-focused offerings give customers a simple, comprehensive way to provide a standard set of services to assure that applications are protected at each stage of development and into the production pipeline.
“As an early adopter of cloud-based DNS services, we’re already seeing the benefits of deploying secondary authoritative DNS solutions in the cloud,” said Joshua Becigneul, ADC Engineer at Secure-24. “It simplifies DNS management, allowing us to move faster without sacrificing performance or security. We had secondary DNS up and running with F5 Cloud Services in just a few clicks and are looking forward to its predictable pay-as-you-go pricing.”
