F5 Synthesis: To boldly go where no ADC has gone before

#SDAS #cloud #DDoS #infosec

It's an application world. But it's also a hybrid cloud, very mobile world, too. Applications might be on-premise, in the cloud or delivered as a SaaS application. Users might be at home, on the road or in the office using a laptop, a tablet a phone or, increasingly, a wearable device.

The complex combinations of device, network and application is growing and business, employees and consumers alike expect the same level of performance, security and reliability regardless of where they - and their applications - might be right now.

That means application delivery has to change, too. The same services that ensure performance, enhance security and assure availability must be as mobile and location-agnostic as the apps and users they serve.

It's no longer enough just to support service delivery from a cloud environment - though that's certainly a requirement - it's also imperative that application services be able to move along both axes - the cloud continuum and the app-user continuum. That's because some services naturally gravitate toward the application like the moon to the earth; services like SSL and SLB and web application firewalls. Others, like SSO, GSLB and secure web gateways, are naturally pulled toward the users because ultimately it is a user-oriented service they are performing.

So it's not enough to say services must be deployable from one end of the cloud axis to the other, from private cloud and traditional on-premise to the ultimate abstraction, as a service. Services must also be flexible enough to move closer to the app or the user, depending on their designated purpose.

In much the same way that certain types of ADC capabilities, such as caching, were placed around the Internet and called CDNs in an effort to move content closer to users, the services traditionally delivered by an on-premise ADC must do the same; a service delivery network, if you like. That is, they must be able to be placed "around the Internet". They must go, as Star Trek fans say, where no ADC has gone before...

We can simply call it "hybrid" but really, the new model is a combination of not just traditional and cloud, or multiple cloud models, or some combination thereof - it's delivering services across both axes; north and south, east and west, cloud and user and app and device.

What We (that's the corporate we today) have announced today is the delivery of Software Defined Application Services (SDAS) from traditional, cloud and as a service offerings. We're laying the foundation for organizations to move services like DDoS protection and web application firewalling closer to the users or apps that need them with F5 Silverline.

F5 Synthesis is focused on delivering applications without constraints. Some of those constraints include the inability to deploy the services apps need to remain available, fast and secure and are purely based on the fact that apps and users are on the move, sometimes frequently. Applications shouldn't be constrained and neither should users. Productivity and competitive advantage depends today on applications and that means applications anywhere.

Whether in the cloud or on premise, as a Service or as part of an integrated system, F5 Synthesis delivers the software-defined application services that applications need and businesses rely on to meet and exceed user expectations.