by Gina Narcisi, CRN
Application delivery and security specialist F5 has a vision for the next generation of application delivery control in the AI era.
F5's transformed Application Delivery Controller "ADC 3.0" strategy—a category that the company has owned—is focused on security, optimization and app delivery at a time in which ADCs must adapt to take on the demands of modern, AI-fueled apps, Lisa Citron (pictured), F5's channel chief, told CRN.
The Seattle-based company is now highlighting reference architectures and key alliances with technology partners like NetApp and Nvidia as it refreshes its approach to the market and provides its partners with the tools they need.
'This really goes to the wheelhouse of the business that we have been in with our partner community for as long as we've been in business. … We're redefining the next era of our business,' F5's channel chief, Lisa Citron, tells CRN ahead of its revamped application delivery control vision.
F5 does more than 90 percent of its business through channel partners.
"What the ADC 3.0 campaign really is doing, in my opinion, is bringing F5 back to its roots of its infrastructure, high availability and delivery of applications, which was what they became famous for when they built the company in 1996. They really invented that space," said Todd Hathaway, global practice manager of AI, app and API security for World Wide Technology (WWT).
AI, said Hathaway, was the catalyst for the company's current ADC 3.0 campaign.
Longtime F5 partner WWT's Infrastructure and Security teams are actively integrating F5 into its AI go-to-market reference architectures that the company has built alongside its other key AI infrastructure partners, Hathaway said.
"F5 doesn't replace any of those other key partners in our solutions. It's an 'and' story for us. It's now we can build our architectures, and you can deliver these applications better and faster with F5 included in our designs," he said.
