For one of the largest technology companies in the Asia Pacific, application delivery and data security are fundamental to business success. Facing tremendous growth in API usage across more than 200 IT applications, along with new demands for artificial intelligence (AI) data processing, the organization needed to modernize its IT ecosystem and infrastructure.
To help reduce risk and support this transformation, the technology provider expanded its investment in F5—modernizing its F5 BIG-IP footprint, gaining oversight of its sprawling API threat surface with F5 Distributed Cloud Services. Those solutions, part of the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP), helped the organization establish a secure, governed foundation for AI data delivery.
The result is a more resilient, observable, and secure platform for delivering mission-critical digital services and accelerating future innovation.
“By partnering with F5, the organization has secured a platform approach that helps it modernize with confidence, maintain an accurate and complete API inventory, and reduce risk as it scales its AI initiatives into the future.”
Securing a sprawling API landscape
One of the organization’s more immediate priorities was gaining control over its rapidly expanding API ecosystem. Supporting a portfolio of over 200 IT applications, the company struggled with limited visibility into its API threat surface—both externally (North-South) and internally (East-West). Furthermore, it lacked the capabilities necessary to enforce security and maintain oversight as new endpoints were constantly added and updated continuously, changing the threat landscape.
The organization needed a solution that could automatically discover APIs, continuously monitor traffic, and enforce protection without disrupting existing operations.
Building on a long-trusted F5 foundation
A customer for more than a decade, the technology company already relied heavily on F5 BIG-IP across its global application footprint, including virtual editions supporting workloads in Azure. That deeply embedded trust made F5 a natural strategic partner as the organization looked to modernize.
What began as a standard infrastructure renewal quickly evolved into a broader strategic initiative. The customer expanded its use of F5 solutions by investing in:
- A BIG-IP technology refresh utilizing new F5 rSeries hardware appliances alongside BIG-IP Virtual Editions to strengthen performance, continuity, and long-term scalability.
- AI data delivery enablement to address siloed, heterogeneous data sources and improve the quality, governance, and latency of data pipelines feeding internal AI experimentation and production workloads.
- F5 Distributed Cloud Services with web application firewall (WAF) and API discovery and protection to seamlessly manage, secure, and monitor its growing API ecosystem across the company’s entire hybrid multicloud environment.
Together, these strategic investments gave the organization a unified path to modernize, while protecting its existing footprint and preserving architectural control.
A unified, flexible platform approach
Several factors shaped the decision to expand with F5 over competing vendors. As the organization evaluated solutions to address its API and cloud security needs, it sought to avoid vendor and tool sprawl. Competitors that focused solely on API security or cloud delivery without supporting the company's crucial on-premises hardware and local traffic management needs were ultimately ruled out.
F5 was steadfast in delivering a single-vendor platform solution. Through extensive proof-of-concept testing, F5 proved superior by providing:
- Easier out-of-band integration with the company's existing BIG-IP estate via customer edge (CE) nodes.
- Richer API discovery outputs, visibility, and insights.
- More robust and effective web application and API (WAAP) protection mechanisms to respond to threats against apps and APIs.
F5 met the organization where it operates, allowing the CIO’s team to continue managing the company’s BIG-IP estate while empowering the security team to leverage F5 Distributed Cloud Services for API security. Moving forward, the company plans to expand this footprint across its cloud environments to build a common cloud security fabric.
Accelerating time-to-insight for AI initiatives
Beyond application and API security, the modernization effort addressed a critical bottleneck in the company's AI-readiness journey: data delivery. By leveraging F5 to streamline data ingestion, processing, and delivery pipelines, the organization overcame challenges with inconsistent data quality and latency.
The AI data delivery solution supports the company’s internal AI initiatives by enabling secure, governed, and high-performance data access for model training, inference, analytics, and reporting. This optimized data operation is expected to significantly improve time-to-insight, model accuracy, and overall operational efficiency.
Modernizing for what comes next
This technology provider’s investment in F5 reinforces a broader truth: when organizations look to modernize critical application and data environments, they need comprehensive solutions that improve security and delivery without forcing architectural disruption.
By partnering with F5, the organization has secured a platform approach that helps it modernize with confidence, maintain an accurate and complete API inventory, and reduce risk as it scales its AI initiatives into the future.
Visit the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform (ADSP) webpage to learn more about the power of a platform approach. Also, see these powerful solutions in action at F5’s Demo Center.
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