How and why NZ businesses are moving to the cloud

Matt Miller, Director, Field Systems Engineering A/NZ, F5 Networks explains not only that New Zealand organisations are moving to the cloud, but crucially, how and why…

Cloud Movement

In the eyes of Miller, there is “no better time” for service providers in particular to be part of the cloud movement.

What that means, he explains, is that service providers will have to start looking at cloud migration patterns instead of just adoption and how that impacts things such as security perimeters, access control and application performance management as they continue to move some apps to the cloud, keep some at home, and go SaaS for others.

“But the beauty of the cloud is that we no longer have fortress models of security in the form of firewalls within data centres,” adds Miller, when describing the security implications of migrating apps to the cloud without compromising on security.

“Our customers are also starting to realise that the point of security control must be at the application level because as we move up the stack, we are getting away from the obstruction layer and are bringing security into the application layer itself.

“With the emergence of software defined networking, those boundaries have evaporated. Hence, the priority now is to implement security within the application itself to ensure that there are adequate levels of encryption.”

Auckland Support

Seven months after the launch of its Global Support Centre in Auckland, Miller says F5 continues to see demand for its Application Delivery Networking solutions and services, cloud and strong partner ecosystem across the region.

Witnessing “substantial growth” in its talent pool since its opening, due to the high demand of services, the company has more doubled its staff pool to 160 percent in the span of seven months, with plans to further increase that number by the end of 2015.

“From a business perspective, our main priority is to stay online for our customers, and ensure that they have access to technical support 24x7,” Miller adds.

“Data from our support centre shows that 60 percent of time is spent supporting our customers in A/NZ, while the remaining is rendered to those in APAC and US.

“It gives us great pride to be able to support our growing customer base wherever they are in the world.”

NZ Plans

Looking ahead to the rest of 2015, Miller says security and cloud will continue to be a core focus for F5 Networks in New Zealand and will drive its broader growth strategy.

“Together with our cloud service providers, F5 is in a good position to take new solutions to market, based on our heritage and our unparalleled understanding of applications,” he adds.

“We’re application agnostic – we treat all apps the same and have solutions for all types of applications.

“New Zealand is an extremely important location for F5 globally. The significance of the support centre for the A/NZ market highlights Auckland as a strategic business and innovation hub for the APAC region, as well as the opportunities F5’s investment is creating for the local economy.”

In addition to the company’s customer portfolio, Miller says F5 has also witnessed “rapid demand” for application delivery solutions in New Zealand.

“We will continue to invest in and add additional resource to our operations in the country,” he adds. “The expanded team further highlights our ongoing commitment to the region.

“While F5 already has a strong presence in the telecommunications, financial services, government and enterprises, with our expanded team, we hope to also continue to increase our footprint in other vertical industries to include retail as well.”

Tags mobileappsF5 Networks

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