Renowned provider of application delivery controllers (ADCs),
F5 Networks Inc.
(
FFIV
) recently unveiled a virtual edition of its flagship Big-IP
product suite for
Amazon.com
's (
AMZN
) web services aka AWS. The web-based version of Big-IP will have
similar features as its physical version.
The BIG-IP product suite helps in application delivery services
through equal load balancing and service offloading. The BIG-IP
system (physical or virtual) runs on the Linux operating system
and acts as a network appliance, which is placed in a data center
between a firewall and application servers ensuring prompt and
secure delivery across IT systems.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides access to technology
infrastructure that developers can use to enable various types of
virtual businesses. The platform will now be able to offer F5's
latest Big-IP suite to meet the growing demand for data center
solutions across the enterprise sector.
Through AWS, F5 Big-IP will provide customers with options to
choose from various solutions such as traffic management, global
server load balancing, application firewall, web application
acceleration and other advanced application delivery functions.
We believe that the pact between the two could create a win-win
situation for both the companies. More customers would prefer to
join AWS to get the Big-IP solution easily. On the other hand, F5
will get wide coverage for its products.
F5 happens to be a key player in the ADC market, thanks to the
popularity of its Big-IP and VIPRION product suites. Recently, IT
market research firm
Gartner Inc.
(
IT
) named the company a leader in the ADC market.
The research firm also stated that
Citrix Systems Inc.
(
CTXS
) and
Radware
(
RDWR
) could become strong contenders for the leading position, which
would be a potential challenge for F5 Networks.
However, we hope that strategic tie-ups with leading enterprise
software vendors, such as
Microsoft Corp.
(
MSFT
),
Oracle Corp.
(
ORCL
) and
VMware Inc.
(
VMW
), as well as Cisco Systems Corp.'s exit from the ADC market will
mitigate the risk.
Despite a prospective growth story, F5 Networks has a Zacks 4#
Rank (short term Sell rating) on the basis of a lackluster
guidance for the coming quarter, which resulted from macro
uncertainties and expected budget cuts by telecom customers.
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