Cyber Security National Security
The future of apps in a multicloud world: F5 agility 2017
C By Chris Cubbage
loud, mobility, and the Internet of Things continue to elevate Apps to the core of business plans. As organisations undergo digital transformation, optimising applications for actionable intelligence and generating a business return remains a challenge. A multiCloud strategy is seen as the key to minimising the risks of ‘keeping all eggs in one basket’, however, as we learnt at F5’s Agility 2017 conference, the move to the Cloud is resulting in surprise cost overruns and ongoing security challenges. With the advent of operating and managing private, public and multi-cloud environments, scalability, flexibility, programmability, security and innovation are all key for business continuity. For 20 years, F5 has been a staple industry name and remains focused on enabling companies to power Apps to ‘go faster, smarter and safer.’ Hosting 400 delegates in Sydney last week, F5 had them complete a survey about how they are undergoing their own transformation in Cloud environments.
51%
Worried about Cloud lock in
Rob Malkin, Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand provided findings from the survey which highlighted customers are still grappling with their ‘digitalisation journey’. “The anecdotal evidence,” Rob explained, “is that a majority of customers have moved to Cloud but they are then getting a surprise with a large bill and finding they’re then stuck. Security is another key issue in this respect. Despite managing multiple Cloud environments, the pendulum appears to be swinging back to private Cloud. Only 45 percent were confident their Apps are sufficiently protected against threats in the Cloud.” Security remains the biggest concern when using public, private and hybrid environments and the result is customers are not moving as many of their Apps to the Cloud. Security skill sets in a multi-Cloud environment are also being challenged and this is creating a lack of confidence. Rob Malkin highlighted a case example, “We had a
44%
30%
Confident about cyber threat protection in Public Cloud
No physical DC by 2020
Source: F5 Agility 2017 Delegate Cloud Survey. August 2017 n=55
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