F5 enters into the cloud services delivery space
Under the company’s new Silverline™ banner, F5 will offer extended security, optimization, 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 DDoS protection and security intelligence services, the Silverline platform will support additional application delivery capabilities as-a-service in the future.
Details
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 organizations to pursue a unified services platform that spans integrated data center 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 ServicesToday’s 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 customized 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 defense. This subscription continuously stops bad traffic from reaching the network.
- Always Available™ – Primary protection on demand. This subscription runs on stand-by 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 ServicesSecure Web Gateway Services protect organizations 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 defenses 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 organization’s compliance and web security policy.
- IP Intelligence ServicesF5’s IP Intelligence Services make it easy for organizations 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 recognize 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 center.