Extend F5’s SaaS-based Security Services to rSeries Appliances
Enterprises deliver apps in more locations than ever before. Our customers operate in multiple environments across multiple form factors, and the diversity of services between hardware and SaaS creates operational complexity, inconsistent security, and internal silos. In the latest F5 State of Application Strategy report, 63% of organizations are deploying and managing applications in three or more environments, and 38% are operating in six. Additionally, we know that 88% of enterprises operate with at least two different deployment models, up from 85% a year ago. Hybrid is only growing—and so are the management challenges.
For over two decades, F5’s hardware systems have remained the benchmark for enterprise data centers worldwide, powering BIG-IP software for application services. F5 Distributed Cloud Services are SaaS-based, delivered via our own network of points of presence (PoPs) and global backbone. Today, we blur the lines between the two by offering Distributed Cloud Services on rSeries appliances in the form of Distributed Cloud Customer Edge nodes.
Before today, our customers needed to leverage multiple sets of security services across on-prem and cloud environments. As a result, they had to maintain multiple policies and dashboards, leading to inconsistencies in security coverage across environments and increased risk. On the other hand, if our customers leaned toward a SaaS-based security service only, they had to make tradeoffs in the form of hair pinning of traffic, reduced control, and increasing costs for their on-premises based or internal applications.
Not anymore.
We’re thrilled to announce that we are helping to ease the cross-environment security and management burden for our F5 rSeries customers with the ability to extend SaaS-based Distributed Cloud Services into their F5 rSeries appliances.
BIG-IP and Distributed Cloud: Better Together on rSeries appliances
Now you can combine the power, reliability, and in-depth control of BIG-IP software with the scalability, flexibility, and security features of Distributed Cloud Services, all on a single rSeries appliance.
By installing an F5 Distributed Cloud Customer Edge (CE) as a VM alongside BIG-IP, you can immediately deploy enterprise-grade cloud security services locally without exposing any traffic publicly, giving you the best of both worlds. The F5 rSeries appliance and BIG-IP provide the highest reliability with enhanced hardware performance, increased scalability, and multi-tenancy to consolidate your infrastructure and application services. Adding a CE brings industry-leading cloud security services like API security and bot defense directly to your appliance.
Let’s dig in. What does a CE deployed next to BIG-IP enable?
- Keep security polices consistent everywhere: With “create once, deploy anywhere” automation, orchestration, and simplicity, you can set up policies in a single environment and deploy them anywhere a CE is installed. Build a robust web app firewall (WAF) policy to block suspicious traffic with highly customizable rules and roll it out to every CE and rSeries appliance in minutes—or deploy BIG-IP Advanced WAF wherever a CE is deployed and use your existing settings.
- Deploy additional application and API security without complexity: For both internal and external applications, you get additional application security services without any new environments to manage. As an example, easily add the capability to detect and mitigate automated attacks with bot defense on every platform with a CE, and realize huge productivity gains and time savings thanks to an 80% improvement in app protection against bot attacks, a 70% reduction in mean time to resolve security incidents, and a 30% reduction in security policy inconsistencies and related incidents.
- Effortlessly connect applications across data centers or public cloud environments: Deploying CEs side-by-side with BIG-IP has an additional benefit of simplifying app-to-app connectivity across environments. Applications fronted by rSeries now have a way to communicate with any other app in any other data center, cloud, or edge location without needing to provision any additional networking. With CEs on rSeries, you have a single network that extends the infrastructure you already have in place to the cloud.
The seamless integration of F5 rSeries, BIG-IP, and Distributed Cloud Services signifies the transformative potential for the future of your application delivery. As the F5 product portfolio continues to converge, you will get local access to more and more cloud-based services such as automated API endpoint discovery. Each new Distributed Cloud Services release will make more offerings available to CEs deployed on F5 rSeries while maintaining the centralized, locally deployable security that makes F5 solutions stand out.
Talk to your Global Strategic Account Manager or connect with our Sales team to get started with F5 Distributed Cloud Customer Edge (CE) on F5 rSeries, available in Early Access.