More and more businesses globally are moving to a multi-cloud situation to deploy or access services. This is according to F5 Networks’ recent report, ‘The State of Application Delivery 2018’ (SOAD), in which more than 50 per cent of the respondents, representing IT professionals from all over the globe, said they use between two and six cloud environments.

The F5 report, now in its fourth year, surveys more than 3,400 industry peers, evaluating the state of application services and looking into motivations underlying the deployment of application services. It covered more than 300 organisations across a broad spectrum of vertical markets such as banking and finance, telecommunications, public sector and consumer products.

The five key findings revolved around the issues of digital transformation, inspiring new architectures and IT optimisation initiatives; multi-cloud deployment, which enables the best cloud for the app; application services as the gateways to the future; the fact that IT optimisation drives the use of automation; and the relationship between security confidence and the rise of multi-cloud.

The survey notes that, according to 49 per cent of respondents, digital transformation is encouraging the delivery of applications from the cloud. Simon McCullough, major channel account manager at F5, notes that attacks on applications are becoming more complex, leading to organisations transforming the traditional perimeter to include the new everyday reality of users accessing applications from anywhere, at any time, and from any device.

He adds: “A key finding of this year’s SOAD report was the continuous increase in multi-cloud deployments, which enable organisations to select the cloud platform that best meets the requirements of a specific application. This scenario, however, which allows a company to transform their application portfolio to compete in today’s digital economy, also increases the challenges that many companies face in managing their operations across multiple clouds and, consequently, their security.”

The report saw that nearly nine out of 10 respondents are now using multiple clouds as a result of their ‘best-of-breed’ strategy for each application deployment. Forty-nine per cent of overall survey respondents are moving to deliver apps from the public cloud. Over half (59 per cent) reported that they are utilising two to six clouds.

The report notes: “Applications streamline processes, provide new services and offerings, and enhance customer experiences… IT decisions get made based on app requirements. At the same time, the speed and scale required from the digital economy is moving IT off premises and into the cloud. This means that cloud decisions are made on a case by case, per-application basis according to 56 per cent of the respondents. As customers have on average over 200 applications, with varying requirements, it’s no surprise that most respondents are operating in multi-cloud environments.”

“The power of apps in the business world is unmistakable,” says Anton Jacobsz, managing director at Networks Unlimited, a value-added distributor of F5 in Africa. “The right technology should support apps to optimise a business and not hamper productivity. Our mission is to empower a business’ limitless potential, and we recommend F5’s app security solutions to move your business forward, making your people more productive and creating a better experience for your customers.”

F5 security solutions have been developed to offer customers complete visibility and control at scale. “Applications ‒ along with their users and data ‒ are exposed to enormous risk as they travel from device to data centre server and back again. Unpredictable and stealthy cyber threats continue to disrupt user availability and exploit financial information and intellectual property. F5 secures access to applications from anywhere while protecting them wherever they reside. F5 helps businesses protect sensitive data and intellectual property while minimising application downtime and maximising end-user productivity,” concludes McCullough.

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