The launch of F5 Distributed Cloud Web Application and API Protection (WAAP)—announced today—is generating a lot of buzz amongst F5’s vast technology partner ecosystem and the joint customers that rely on us. This new SaaS offering represents the latest evolution in application security and extends our commitment to securing your enterprise apps—including instances where you work with our partners to maximize security and value.
Distributed Cloud WAAP is a multi-layered solution that delivers industry-leading web application firewall (WAF) capabilities with DDoS mitigation, bot defense, and API protection. By combining these previously disparate features into an easily deployed as-a-service solution, F5 delivers robust security capabilities—and a simplified set of controls to manage those capabilities—to protect applications and APIs against a myriad of threats and fraud. The F5 Distributed Cloud Platform enables customers to deploy, secure, and operate their applications in a cloud-native environment wherever needed—data center, multi-cloud, hybrid-cloud, or enterprise edge.
Our soon to be published 2022 State of Application Strategy Report found that 88% of respondents currently operate both legacy and modern application architectures. Additionally, more than three-quarters of respondents (77%) say they run applications in multiple clouds, while 84% plan to make use of the edge. All this activity brings many challenges, not least of which is the fact that the proliferation of architectures, cloud services, and open source software acts to expand the overall risk landscape.
While app deployment has been massively transformed by automation, app security too often still requires a high degree of manual effort. So, while digital transformation has focused on app modernization and multi-cloud delivery, security tools are frequently deployed as difficult-to-integrate point solutions. And when neglected or improperly implemented, sub-par security enables attackers to exploit web application and API vulnerabilities and abuse business logic to steal personally identifiable information (PII), inflict degradation/downtime losses, commit account takeover (ATO) and fraud, and otherwise cause financial losses and reputational damage.
The need to address all these risks, and others, is why F5 works hand in hand with a large pool of ecosystem partners (with examples noted in parentheses). Our technology partners provide a full range of adjacent services that customers rely on—services like certificate and key management (Venafi, Thales, Entrust); application and API access management (Okta); security automation, response, and analytics (Splunk); threat detection and response (Stellar Cyber); anti-bot protection (Promon, Salesforce Commerce Cloud), and many more. Together, F5 and our partners are committed to enabling shared APIs and other methods that make these and related services easy to integrate and simple to operate.
Accordingly, we developed the new Distributed Cloud WAAP with both customers and partners in mind. This launch represents a major effort to capture the strategic imperative that is top-of-mind for all of us: delivering the best possible security to the enterprise and all its customers.
Distributed Cloud WAAP brings industry-leading F5 technology into a holistic as-a-service offering that is purpose-built for modern, distributed apps and multi-cloud environments. With this new platform, you can accelerate time-to-service, lower your TCO, and increase security efficacy since all F5 Distributed Cloud Services are cloud-based and fully integrated through a single data path, policy engine, and management console.
We are excited by the new opportunities this presents to enterprise users everywhere and are working closely with technology partners to ensure smooth transitions to the new platform, and to continue driving value for mutual customers across the full array of F5 products—including BIG-IP, BIG-IQ Centralized Management, Silverline Managed Security Services, and others. Whether you are a new or existing customer or one of our many valued partners, we invite you to reach out to your F5 contact to discuss exciting new opportunities for secure digital experiences enabled by F5 Distributed Cloud WAAP.
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