F5 Networks has announced new hybrid service capabilities to help organisations scale IT resources across dynamic cloud and data centre deployments.
Under the company’s new Silverline banner, F5 will offer extended security, optimisation and availability services from hosted and managed infrastructure, marking F5’s entrance into the cloud services delivery space.
The F5 Silverline services delivery platform expands the company’s F5 Synthesis architecture to enable application services within customers’ deployment model of choice: on-premises and/or as-a-service. Beginning with distributed denial of service (DDoS) protection and security intelligence services, the Silverline platform will support additional application delivery capabilities as-a-service in the future.
Ongoing migration of applications to the cloud, increased user and resource mobility, and an ascension of sophisticated threats have led to the dissolution of the traditional enterprise perimeter. This requires organisations to pursue a unified services platform that spans integrated data centre and cloud deployments.
With Silverline, F5 is broadening the reach and utility of its services fabric to promote nimble IT infrastructures. F5’s investment in hybrid services delivery and security intelligence licensing options mirrors the industry’s rising interest in providing programmable application delivery capabilities across physical and virtual infrastructures to support Software Defined Application Services and other software-defined initiatives.
F5’s Silverline hybrid application delivery services and security intelligence offerings include:
* DDoS Protection Services – the announcement sees the global introduction of the F5 Silverline DDoS Protection offering. This solution builds on F5’s acquisition of Defense.Net, combining on-premises DDoS protection capabilities with a high-capacity cloud service that can take advantage of programmable technologies like iRules and APIs for customised performance.
This approach provides a hybrid solution capable of absorbing and mitigating a complete spectrum of DDoS attacks.
F5’s open and programmable architecture enables network security administrators to extend custom rules to mitigate zero-day attacks. This offering works seamlessly with F5’s Application Delivery Controller (ADC) solutions to create the most complete DDoS protection solution. F5 provides tiered protection levels, based on customers’ unique needs and potential attack profiles:
* Always On – First line of defence. This subscription continuously stops bad traffic from reaching the network.
* Always Available – Primary protection on demand. This subscription runs on standby and can be initiated as needed when under attack.
* Ready Defense – Secondary DDoS protection. This subscription provides additional capacity to bolster DDoS mitigation capabilities.
* Secure Web Gateway Services – Secure Web Gateway Services protect organisations from threats associated with employee (or outbound) Internet use. Through a partnership with Websense, F5 Secure Web Gateway Services can limit target activities to encourage productivity and enhance defences against malware, corporate malfeasance and other attacks against networked environments.
Taking advantage of F5’s Silverline platform, signatures and other context-based information are provided via the cloud to the BIG-IP solution. This approach ensures the most up-to-date Internet context is part of an organisation’s compliance and web security policy.
* IP Intelligence Services – F5’s IP Intelligence Services make it easy for organisations to incorporate IP reputation and blocking capabilities into their overall web security postures. In a convenient subscription model, F5 IP Intelligence Services enable BIG-IP to recognise and mitigate malicious activity – such as phishing or botnets – and boost efficiency by filtering out bad traffic before it impacts precious IT resources.
Similar to F5’s approach to Secure Web Gateway Services, reputation information is provided via the cloud to detect threats based on the latest intelligence available, removing the operational burden of sourcing this information from the data centre.
“Organisations are looking for the ability to cost-effectively deliver applications without constraints, with specific IT components as a secondary concern. F5’s goal with the Synthesis framework is simply to remove barriers to deploying and scaling application services.
“Our Silverline offerings will make core F5 technologies available as-a-service to help customers embrace hybrid deployments without forsaking the benefits they’ve seen in the data centre,”
Martin Walshaw, senior engineer at F5 Networks.
“Efficiently scaling application services such as optimisation, security and availability is still a priority topic for enterprise organisations, even as we’ve seen an evolution of how (and where) these services are applied. F5’s move into hybrid application delivery services should open up new opportunities with customers looking to move applications out of their traditional data centre environments and take advantage of the flexibility offered by cloud providers,” says Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst, ZK Research.
