Agility Day One – A Snapshot

We’ve had a fantastic first day at Agility EMEA in Vienna – thanks to everyone who was able to join us! For anyone who missed out, here’s a snapshot of what took place!

First off, we announced this morning the findings from our EMEA survey into consumer security concerns. To pull out the highlights, the survey revealed that:

• 75 per cent of consumers have no confidence in social media brands and marketing companies’ protection of their data, yet more consumers are sharing data on social media than ever before
• 88 per cent of consumers feel strongly that organisations should improve authentication for greater security
• Almost a third (31 per cent) see no value in giving their personal data to companies, and yet over half (53 per cent) are willing to share their date of birth, marital status (51 per cent) and personal interests (50 per cent) in return for using a company’s services for free

Our recently-appointed CISO, Mike Convertino, outlined the balance between privacy and security and how “consumers are horribly conflicted over who should do what,” particularly when we consider how “the least trusted entities [social media] have the most data shared with them.” The results reveal that the responsibility should continue to be shared across governments, consumers and private sector organisations to protect consumers, with no single entity responsible for driving change on their own. Mike also outlined how organisations such as Facebook or other social media platforms could work with consumers to provide tools to alleviate consumer concerns around data security and to increase awareness of how data can be used and protected.

The afternoon saw the keynote sessions kick off with Lizzie Cohen-Laloum, Senior Vice President of EMEA Sales, who highlighted our new announcements today - software-based solutions that enable customers to seamlessly integrate availability and security services, simplify device management, and better orchestrate IT infrastructure. With an aim of lowering costs while boosting efficiency, the announcement will support organisations who are evolving towards more dynamic infrastructure models that combine physical, virtual, and cloud components. You can take a closer look here.

Lizzie also looked to the future – in her words, “The challenges we face are bigger than ever; but so are the opportunities.” One such opportunity is hybrid; Lizzie highlighted how, by the end of 2019, cloud traffic will account for 84% of all data centre traffic – with 67% of businesses estimating that up to 50% of apps will be hosted in the cloud.

Next to take the stage was CEO, John McAdam. He talked about the success which F5 has seen over the past year in terms of financial performance, growth in market share and F5’s geographic expansion. In considering the transformations in technology in the past 20 years, he reinstated the need – and F5’s ability – to deliver applications in a fast, available and secure manner.

John DiLullo, our Executive VP, Worldwide Sales was next. He pulled together several compelling examples of the seismic shifts taking place across industries, with companies such as AirBnB and Uber turning established business models on their head. “The information about assets is becoming more important than the assets themselves,” John pointed out, before predicting that the sharing economy will come to many more industries this year. While this is good news for consumers, the risks are huge -  the value is tied up in 1s and 0s which are incredibly susceptible to theft.

According to John, “Firewalls are no longer working. The perimeter is dissolving. It's time to rethink your security architecture, with a new focus on two things: firstly, user identity and access and full proxy enforcement and secondly defence of critical applications.” The opportunity is here and we can work together to deliver against it.

Gary Newe, Director of Systems Engineering, also took to the stage to outline the current issue with security spending – 90% of budgets go on securing the traditional perimeter, yet 72% of attacks target user identity and applications. He urged businesses to review their spending patterns to protect the enterprise, users and customers.

We also heard from further members of the team who took a deeper dive into Silverline, along with the guest speaker slot from Misha Gienny, who you can hear more from here.

That just about wraps it up! It’s been a fantastic first day at our EMEA Agility event in Vienna – with plenty more action set for tomorrow. We’ll see you then!