2022 F5 Multi-Cloud Application Service Technology Summit was grandly held, embracing open source, embracing localization, and embracing digital innovation

April 20, 2022 – The 2022 F5 Multi-Cloud Application Service Technology Summit was grandly held. The theme of this summit was “Cloud without Borders, Architecting the Future”. Not only did it have three major releases including F5’s new China strategy, a new application delivery platform, and new open source products, but it was also a gathering of big names, with more than 30 industry experts, scholars, and F5 senior architects and technical consultants bringing wonderful sharing.

F5 CEO Fan Zhonglin and F5 Chief Chinese Scientist and CTO Lin Geng addressed the conference and gave wonderful speeches, depicting the blueprint of F5 helping users cope with multi-cloud application security and application delivery challenges in the tide of digital transformation. F5 China General Manager Zhang Yiqiang explained in detail to the participants the strategic development direction of F5 in China - actively embracing open source, embracing localization, embracing digital innovation, and providing value and services to the vast number of users in China.

Embracing digital innovation, F5 China launches "three-year strategy"

In 2019, the number of apps in the world reached 1 billion. By 2025, this number is expected to increase fivefold to nearly 5 billion. The world of apps has exploded. As people's lives become more and more dependent on apps, app security has become the core foundation of their lifestyle.

As the only company at the intersection of the explosive growth of applications and the explosive growth of digital security, F5 has kept pace with global trends and carried out an active transformation: from a company that "supports any application anytime, anywhere in the data center" to a "software-centric" company; from a company that "mainly relies on hardware for profit" to a company that "relies on software for profit"; from a company with a single product family to a company with multiple product families, and from a product-based company to a company that will provide data services in the future.

In the 21 years since entering China, F5 has been committed to continuously upgrading, innovating and iterating through advanced technologies and solutions to continuously meet the needs of Chinese customers in multi-cloud application services. Based on the changes and needs of the Chinese market, F5 China is based on the present and looks to the future, and has released its development strategy for the next three years:

• Digital innovation: Continue to introduce the world's most advanced technologies and experiences into China, and help more companies become digital innovation companies. To this end, F5 released new software and hardware products at this conference.

• Open source ecosystem: vigorously popularize and improve the application level of modern applications in China, and work with domestic manufacturers to create a trusted open source ecosystem. In order to better meet the needs of enterprise open source software governance, F5 launched the trusted open source NGINX Enterprise Edition (Open-source Subscription)

• Global services: Relying on the global service network, we will help Chinese companies develop globally. Based on comprehensive SaaS services in overseas markets, we will help overseas companies achieve digital transformation and provide effective response strategies for overseas customers.

• Local cooperation: Continue to strengthen innovation with Chinese partners and jointly build localized solutions for China.

Major new product launches to help enterprises meet modern application challenges

At this summit, F5 released the next-generation fully automated modern application platform - VELOS, which can provide agility and ultra-high performance for established traditional applications and emerging applications, protecting customer investments. In order to achieve the separation of the data plane and the management plane, F5 introduced a dedicated system control board SX410 in hardware for the first time, which enables a single VELOS control card to have the switching capacity to process 1.6T traffic at line speed. The entire frame has two redundant control cards, which can achieve a maximum processing capacity of 3.2T. VELOS's latest board BX110 is only half the width of the 2250 board. A single board provides 2*100G interface access bandwidth to meet green environmental protection requirements.

For mid-range and high-end users, F5 has launched the independent F5 rSeries platform, which provides customers with ultimate flexibility, can support up to 36 tenants with fully isolated management at the same time, and can support a variety of interfaces such as 10G/25G/40G/100G optical ports. rSerie is divided into the high-end r10000 platform, the mid-range r5000, and the upcoming r2000 and r4000 low-end series. On the mid-range and high-end platforms, users can have three performance authorization modes: high, medium and low (600, 800 and 900). By supporting multiple models of optical interfaces, customers can achieve maximum flexibility, increase redundancy and shorten the time to deploy new applications.

Build an open source ecosystem and comprehensively promote localized cooperation

As one of the most popular open source projects in the world, more than 400 million domain names worldwide use NGINX as a carrier, and more than 80% of Internet traffic passes through NGINX. NGINX plays an important role in helping enterprises avoid security risks and conduct open source governance.

In order to enable enterprise customers to better enjoy the original service and technical support of NGINX, F5 launched the new NGINX Enterprise Edition (OSS). Through NGINX Enterprise Edition (OSS), F5 can provide users with original technical support services, including installation and deployment support, remote support for faults, security vulnerability notifications, software upgrade support, technical document interpretation, etc.; it also includes more advanced professional consulting services, on-site technical support, and consulting services for specific issues; for some users' advanced needs, customized development services and joint creation services can also be provided to meet users' needs at different levels. Through these measures, users can get further support in open source software governance and better avoid risks such as technical routes, intellectual property rights, information security risks, technical capabilities, and supply chains.

In order to better implement localized applications, F5 signed a cooperation agreement with its partner Beijing Tongming Mingyun at the summit. F5 will work with Tongming Mingyun to establish an NGINX community in China that meets the requirements of trusted open source, and jointly promote the prosperity and development of the open source ecosystem.

Zhang Yiqiang, General Manager of F5 China, said, "Helping users improve their information level and accelerate their digitalization process through world-leading innovative technologies is the direction that F5 has been adhering to since entering China 21 years ago. Today, facing increasingly complex digital challenges and increasingly diverse local needs, we hope to better empower Chinese users and fully protect the digital transformation of enterprises through a new three-year strategy - digital innovation, open source ecology, global services and local cooperation."

Riding the trend and making a fresh start, F5 will take this summit as a starting point and work together with customers and partners to strive for the goal of "making a better digital world integrated into life", and work together to enter the era of perceptual and controllable applications to help companies gain the upper hand in digital competition!