F5 project helps business embrace automation

F5 Networks has announced a project to help businesses and the wider IT industry more effectively embrace automation, unlock new levels of performance and address lingering IT skills gaps.

F5’s global Super-NetOps initiative is an industry first in EMEA. Its ongoing intention is to shake up the network operations (NetOps) community to facilitate stronger collaboration with developers (DevOps) and fuel a shift from manual task-based practices to achieve unprecedented levels of automation, continuous improvement and business return on investment. The goal of the programme is to develop skills necessary to standardise critical application services and provide automated toolchains.

“There is a gap when it comes to work practices and collaboration between NetOps and DevOps teams. We want to inspire a new workforce of Super-NetOps professionals that are able to proactively support enterprise needs for rapid, automated application development and delivery,” said Martin Walshaw, senior systems engineer at F5 Networks.

“Evolving threat landscapes and multi-cloud deployment environments are changing the game. Developers are increasingly demanding application services that deliver performance, scalability and security in a more automated way. The pressure is now on traditional IT teams to enable the orchestration and agility needed to succeed in a digital economy by embracing programmability. F5’s Super-NetOps initiative is all about meeting this challenge head-on.”

F5’s Super-NetOps initiative starts with a free, on-demand e-learning course already trialled with hundreds of F5 customers. The inaugural course covers DevOps methodologies, automation concepts, orchestration, and infrastructure-as-code. It has been specifically structured to break down operational silos and reduce time-to-service from days to minutes – all while ensuring applications meet necessary compliance, policy and performance standards.

In the coming months, F5 will roll out an expanded curriculum, including security-focused automated deployment methodologies for the burgeoning DevSecOps role. Other topics set to feature include application language frameworks and third-party automation toolchain enablement.

“Network operations are more important than ever. Decades of experience deploying, managing, maintaining and securing applications is invaluable. What’s now needed is a way to bridge the divide between traditional, manual IT practices and the rapid, automation-fuelled pace of application development and deployment,” added Walshaw.

“Developers, for the most part, want to access operations services on demand. As a result, network operations professionals urgently need to learn how to define and deliver the services their applications teams need in a service model. This leaves developers free to focus on developing the applications that drive revenue.”

F5’s Super-NetOps initiative comes as the region’s appetite for automation continues to grow.

According to F5’s 2018 State of Application Delivery report (SOAD), three in four (75%) of surveyed EMEA customers declare the use of automation in the operation of IT infrastructure to be “somewhat” or “very” important. The majority (72%) are using automation to realise leaner IT with the goal of reducing OpEx, while nearly half (48%) are looking to scale to meet demand. 6% said they use automation for all production deployments, 49% partially used automation and 28% are running pilot programmes.

Supporting quote

“Automation-focused DevOps is an integral part of modernising network infrastructure, and through a series of F5 integrations with Red Hat Ansible Automation, F5 users can more simply automate and orchestrate their networks. The Super-NetOps programme will help provide F5 customers with the tools they need to get started on their network automation journey.”

Justin Nemmers, General Manager, Ansible, Red Hat