Lori MacVittie

#F5 #IBMCloud #IBMSAPAlliance #Cloud #SDAS #ThoughtsOnCloud

One of the concerns often cited by those migrating to or integrating with "the cloud" is that applications deployed in off-premise cloud environments will fail to meet expectations with respect to availability, performance and, of course, security. The enterprise market continues to adopt cloud, but more so on the SaaS front than on the IaaS precisely because there is a lack of parity in the cloud on the enterprise-class services front. Those services - high availability, load balancing, application acceleration and optimization - along with security are critical to enterprise applications. Cloud environments that cannot support these services are at a distinct and very real competitive disadvantage with those that can.

Applications that may very well benefit from cost savings and elasticity afforded by off-premise cloud computing may have to be passed over for those that may not yield the same cost benefits due to a lack of supporting services.

One of the cloud computing environments that can provide those services is IBM Cloud Managed Services, which takes advantage of F5 Software Defined Application Services (SDAS) to ensure applications have the same high availability, optimization and SSL offload in the IBM managed cloud as they receive in the data center from IBM and F5 architectures.

F5 Synthesis High Performance Services Fabric integrates into the IBM Managed Service Cloud providing their customers with an open, fully isolated, multi-tenant architecture. By laying its service foundation on F5 Synthesis, IBM Cloud Managed Services will be able to execute on a phased service strategy that gives it a competitive advantage. Combined with its existing, proven enterprise track record, IBM's offering is well positioned to be a compelling choice for organizations who have thus far resisted the move to cloud - or those who've had to settle for lesser clouds.

Load Balancing as a Service

IBM Cloud Managed Service is based on a hybrid application delivery approach. This approach is fully supported by F5 Synthesis and its heterogeneous approach to service fabrics, which can comprise hardware, appliance and virtual systems (even those deployed in the cloud) in any combination. This model mirrors the evolution of networks in the data center, which are increasingly bifurcated into a core data center network that infrequently changes and thus leverages advantages of hardware and a more flexible, dynamic application network that frequently changes and benefits from architectures comprising software or virtualized elements.

Today, IBM Cloud Managed Service is enabling a set of standard services with basic load-balancing features as well as data path programmability with F5 iRules.

Modern public cloud platforms provider the most basic form of delivery service, load balancing, as their starting point for allowing tenants to support complex networking delivery. Similarly, a load balancing service is deemed a necessary first offering to support cloud tenants with high availability, scaling, or security requirements. By choosing to implement that load balancing service atop a comprehensive layer 4-7 service platform, IBM Cloud Managed Service can expand services available to cloud tenants across F5 Synthesis portfolio of services comprising availability, performance, mobility, security, and access and identity without requiring changes to the underlying architecture or network topology.

F5 is pleased to continue our long history with IBM supporting its world class enterprise applications by partnering to support its SDN and cloud initiatives.

• For more information on IBM Cloud Managed Services, you can go to: http://ibm.com/cloud/cms  
• For more information on F5 Synthesis, you can go to: http://synthesis.f5.com