F5 Empowers OpenStack Community with Leading Application Delivery Services

OpenStack integration shows F5’s commitment to helping customers deploy their cloud platform of choice, with no compromises on application delivery

OPENSTACK SUMMIT, ATLANTA – F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) announced today extended capabilities for OpenStack public, private, and hybrid cloud solutions, allowing customers to quickly deploy and orchestrate F5 application delivery services in OpenStack environments. New integrations will be made available for OpenStack Community Edition software. F5 is also in the process of certifying its integrations with other leading technology vendors to further extend the reach of application delivery services in the cloud. Visit F5 at this week’s OpenStack Summit in Atlanta, booth #E47.

“We are seeing significant customer interest in adopting more flexible cloud platforms,” said Dr. Mallik Tatipamula, VP of Service Provider and Cloud Solutions at F5. “Our growing portfolio of integrated solutions firmly aligns the BIG-IP® and BIG-IQ® platforms with OpenStack cloud specifications, extending Software Defined Application Services™ into the cloud. In addition, our involvement with the OpenStack community helps position F5 customers to take advantage of emerging capabilities and industry best practices.”

Details

Building on longstanding technology integration efforts and F5’s formal entrance into the community last year, the new offerings give customers powerful ways to combine F5 and OpenStack technologies. With today’s announcement, F5 will support OpenStack open source cloud software across four key areas:

• Application Delivery – OpenStack Networking (Neutron) Load Balancing as a Service (LBaaS) and other capabilities can be integrated with F5’s BIG-IP and BIG-IQ solutions via plug-ins for OpenStack Community Edition software, opening the door for more advanced application delivery services to follow.
• Orchestration – OpenStack Orchestration (Heat) integration provides enhanced functionality with BIG-IQ cloud connector capabilities for OpenStack Community Edition software.
• Vendor Certification – F5 is in the process of validating its integrations with other companies in the community to ensure fully supported, vendor-tested OpenStack deployments.
• Community Innovation – F5’s DevCentral™ user community is expanding to better support OpenStack developers with plug-in downloads, sample code, and documentation to help organizations maximize their technology investments. Customers can take advantage of DevCentral resources in sharing knowledge and experience as they build new, impactful solutions with F5 and OpenStack.

F5 Application Delivery Controller (ADC) services can now be deployed within an OpenStack environment, enabling consistent delivery of applications across private and public clouds. Beginning with support for OpenStack Neutron LBaaS functionality and looking forward, F5 customers will be able to integrate additional ADC services such as application acceleration, high availability, and security/firewall services.

Customers can leverage their existing F5 BIG-IP physical and virtual deployments to enable ADC services using OpenStack software and F5 plug-ins together. With F5 BIG-IQ cloud connector capabilities, customers can also take advantage of F5’s iApps® technology to reduce the risk of manual configuration errors and streamline application deployments across private and public OpenStack clouds.

Supporting Quotes

“OpenStack Networking (Neutron) and OpenStack Orchestration (Heat) are two of the fastest-moving programs within the OpenStack community. Community members like F5 are giving their customers new ways to consume these OpenStack services while retaining the familiarity of products they rely upon in their data centers. That’s an important objective for the community, and F5 is making it a reality for their customers.”

Heidi Bretz, Director of Business Development, OpenStack Foundation

“F5’s OpenStack integration efforts, spanning both compute and network projects, exemplify the company’s desire to meet customers’ wide-ranging cloud application delivery requirements. Given F5’s experiences with its own DevCentral, the company would appear well placed to understand how community-based initiatives such as OpenStack can galvanize developer interest, engender innovation, and sustain market momentum.”

Brad Casemore, Research Director for Datacenter Networks, IDC

F5 at OpenStack Summit in Atlanta

During this week’s OpenStack Summit, F5 will showcase integrations between its market-leading application delivery solutions and OpenStack technologies. See how you can support OpenStack deployments with BIG-IP and BIG-IQ solutions—including LBaaS setup and iApps-based application deployments—in the show’s exhibition hall at booth #E47.

Availability

F5 cloud connector capabilities for OpenStack are available today with BIG-IQ solutions. Please contact a local F5 sales office for additional information and product availability in specific countries. The OpenStack Neutron LBaaS plug-in for BIG-IP will be available for download later this month through DevCentral, supporting Community Edition software. The plug-in for BIG-IQ will be available via downloads.f5.com in July 2014.

About OpenStack

OpenStack is open source software for building clouds. OpenStack clouds enable businesses to rapidly roll out new products, add new features, and improve internal systems while preventing technology lock-in as the only open source cloud platform that’s supported by every IT industry leader. Hundreds of the world’s largest brands rely on OpenStack to run their businesses every day, reducing costs and accelerating time to market. For more information and to join the community, visit http://www.OpenStack.org.

About F5

F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) makes apps go faster, smarter, and safer for the world’s largest businesses, service providers, governments, and consumer brands. F5 delivers cloud and security solutions that enable organizations to embrace the application infrastructure they choose without sacrificing speed and control. For more information, go to f5.com. You can also follow @f5networks on Twitter or visit us on LinkedIn and Facebook for more information about F5, its partners, and technologies.

F5 is a trademark or service mark of F5 Networks, Inc., in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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