Secure AWS and Private Edge Environments with F5 Distributed Cloud Services

For AWS users, there are numerous options for extending infrastructure and services to the edge. AWS Outposts are a fully managed service that brings AWS to virtually any data center, co-location space, or on-premises facility. Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is available for AWS Outposts as well as Amazon EKS Anywhere to operate Kubernetes clusters on premises. Or you may choose to run your own edge environment that communicates with your AWS services.

Regardless of how you configure your edge environment, you need a way to secure it. As an AWS partner, F5 is ready to help. F5® Distributed Cloud Web App and API Protection (WAAP) is a SaaS-based solution that includes:

• Dynamic web application firewall (WAF) that’s easy to deploy and scale to defend apps with a combination of signature and AI-powered behavioral protection
• Bot defense that adapts faster than attackers can retool for effective protection without user friction
• API security that not only monitors for anomalous behavior but also discovers risky unmanaged APIs
• DDoS mitigation against volumetric and increasingly common application layer attacks

The fully featured, cloud-based WAAP protects apps, app infrastructure, and APIs running on AWS and is available via the AWS Marketplace. If you’re using an AWS Outpost for your edge site, you can use Distributed Cloud WAAP the same way as in your other AWS instances.

However, your edge site may require an extra level of security or might be too far from the many points of presence (PoPs) in the F5® Global Network. In this situation, you can deploy Distributed Cloud Customer Edge. This move creates a private PoP you own and can manage centrally from the F5® Distributed Cloud Console.

Your Distributed Cloud Customer Edge instance uses the F5 Global Network for management and telemetry, but your apps and security tools reside on your private edge. Users will interact only with the edge site, which is especially important if the underlying data is subject to data privacy laws that restrict where that data can travel.

With the same features as the SaaS version of F5® Distributed Cloud Services, Distributed Cloud Customer Edge offers extra deployment flexibility. It can be installed on hyperscalers like AWS, hypervisors, bare metal, or Kubernetes. It extends Distributed Cloud Services anywhere you need for consistency and simplicity, making management and operations easier and more effective for your security team.

Distributed Cloud Customer Edge also lets you take advantage of F5's multicloud networking (MCN) capabilities to link apps, services, and data in your edge environment with AWS. This integration delivers secure connectivity and service discovery to make your distributed environment work smoothly. It’s not limited to connecting public clouds and edge—you can also leverage F5 MCN to connect multiple public or private clouds or on-premises environments with simple one-click provisioning.

Whether you use an AWS edge environment or need to connect a private edge to your AWS cloud, F5 Distributed Cloud Services provide consistent, effective security for your entire environment without increasing the number of tools you need to manage.

Learn more about the F5 and AWS partnership at f5.com/aws.