Global cloud provider OVHcloud has announced a strategic partnership in the United States with F5, a leader in multicloud application security. This collaboration brings F5’s Distributed Cloud Services to OVHcloud’s US customer base, providing infrastructure-neutral solutions that streamline networking across data centers, clouds, and edge environments while ensuring consistent application security policies and enforcement.
F5’s expertise lies in helping organizations tackle the complex challenges of securing applications and APIs in hybrid multicloud environments. Through this partnership, OVHcloud customers will now have access to F5’s advanced solutions, enabling them to seamlessly route traffic through F5’s private global network. This integration would offer enhanced security by isolating app security services from the public Internet, and utilizing lightweight software extensions, known as Customer Edge, to extend F5’s Distributed Cloud Services into customer environments.
Customer Edge extensions would offer a secured and simplified multicloud networking solution for private interconnectivity, whether for on-premises, edge, or other public/private cloud setups. This capability can particularly be valuable for applications in sensitive, regulated industries as well as modern technologies like generative AI.
Pranav Dharwadkar, Vice President of Product Management for Distributed Cloud Services at F5, emphasized the increasing importance of security in the era of digital transformation. “As organizations accelerate their digital transformation journeys, the need for robust security and seamless connectivity across diverse cloud environments has never been more critical,” he stated. Mr. Dharwadkar highlighted how the collaboration allows customers to install and protect apps and APIs across various environments – whether on-premises, hybrid multicloud, or edge deployments.
Security Enforcement across Kubernetes Distributions
By working with OVHcloud, F5 aims to reduce the complexity of managing networks and security across distributed cloud systems. The partnership is designed to alleviate the operational overhead of managing globally distributed applications while maintaining rigorous security standards. In particular, F5’s solution focuses on enhancing application portability by simplifying security enforcement across different Kubernetes distributions, helping businesses move their applications between environments more easily and accelerate time-to-market.
Jeffrey Gregor, General Manager of OVHcloud US, expressed enthusiasm for the partnership, highlighting the importance of simplifying hybrid and multicloud connectivity. “It’s critical that we prioritize solutions that drastically simplify hybrid, multicloud connectivity and app security as our customers seek to modernize their apps, migrate fully to the cloud, or increase their hybrid cloud footprint,” said Mr. Gregor.
