New research from F5 Networks shows most companies are already using a hybrid cloud infrastructure, and are about to use it more operationally.|New research from F5 Networks shows most companies are already using a hybrid cloud infrastructure, and are about to use it more operationally.
More than a fifth of companies surveyed plan on running their applications in a public or private cloud environment – and 80 percent already use a hybrid cloud infrastructure.
These findings from F5 Networks’ State of the Application report were revealed this week at the company’s annual EMEA Agility conference in Barcelona.
The report warned that, with this move to leverage multi-cloud environments, unexpected hurdles often present themselves. Application deployments across multiple cloud platforms create challenges in managing application services; inconsistent security policies create compliance risks; and multiple cloud architectures put more pressure on IT departments, and diminish the return on the cloud’s value.
“Customers are increasingly choosing to deploy applications in multiple clouds — public and private, in colocation facilities, and in their own data centers — but are struggling with the management of different development environments, tool sets, and orchestration technologies,” said Sangeeta Anand, SVP of Product Management and Product Marketing at F5.
“Where these clouds provide services for applications, they often do so in ways that are not portable enough, are use-case specific, or provide inadequate protection. F5’s portfolio of multi-cloud application services and solutions gives customers the freedom to deploy any application—anywhere—with consistent application services and enterprise-grade security.”
He reminded that audience that, in November, F5 shared its vision to power intelligent application services in the cloud with the stability, security, and performance customers expect. Today, the said, the company is building on that foundation with the broad availability of solutions for multi-platform, multi-cloud services that make applications go faster, smarter, and safer.
The following products were announced at the event, as supplied by F5:
- F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition in the Google Cloud means that organizations can now deploy F5 services in all major public clouds. F5 gives customers greater choices of cloud platforms, with new ‘bring your own license’ offers for instances ranging from 25 Mbps to 5 Gbps. Available now from Google Cloud Launcher in Good, Better, and Best versions.
- Cloud solution templates for Amazon Web Services, Azure, and Google reduce the complexity of deploying F5 services for applications in the public cloud. These new solution-specific templates simplify and automate common public cloud use cases. Cloud solution templates are also available for OpenStack private cloud environments. Available now on GitHub.
- Integrated marketplace solutions provide easily accessible, pre-packaged F5 services such as WAF and Office 365 federated access that are deployable directly from public cloud marketplaces, meaning companies can leverage their trusted F5 services easily for applications in the cloud. Available now in the Azure Marketplace.
- A private cloud solution package gets customers up and running quickly with pre-tested, certified, and bundled F5 solutions that simplify and automate OpenStack private cloud deployments. Available now through F5 sales.
- Lightweight Application Services Proxy gives customers flexibility in developing, testing, and scaling applications in container environments. Available now at Docker Store.
- Container Connector provides the easy deployment of app services in containerized environments, and simple integration of capabilities into management/orchestration systems including Kubernetes and Mesos/Marathon. Available now at GitHub and Docker Hub.
- Application Connector delivers application services insertion from the edge of the public cloud by automatically discovering cloud-hosted workloads in AWS, and securely connecting any cloud provider to the customer’s interconnection or data center. Available now through F5 sales.
“Business executives are beginning to rely heavily on cloud solutions in support of their digital transformation efforts, but in many cases, single cloud deployments are insufficient to enable true business agility,” said Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research. “Unfortunately, multi-cloud frameworks are complex and IT must take the steps needed to mitigate the challenges of operating in these mixed worlds. With F5’s multi-cloud portfolio of products, IT can deliver consistent and secure application services in any environment needed for business velocity.”