F5 + Red Hat + Integrators: Powering the Cloud Partner Ecosystem
It’s been said that the best collaborations create something bigger than what any one organization can achieve on its own. That’s the sentiment that guides F5’s approach to our entire partner ecosystem—including our collaboration with Red Hat, the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source solutions.
F5 collaborates with Red Hat to help customers automate business processes, modernize application development, and implement enhanced security capabilities in today’s increasingly complex hybrid cloud environments. Recently, we’ve worked to extend this relationship by working closely with systems integrators, both regionally and globally, to make it easier for customers to capture the full value of F5 solutions supported on Red Hat platforms.
Driving cloud application modernization for customers
The solutions we develop with Red Hat help customers accelerate their application modernization efforts by connecting and securing applications and APIs across hybrid environments. A couple examples:
- Connecting Red Hat OpenShift to other environments: Red Hat OpenShift is the industry’s leading hybrid cloud application platform powered by Kubernetes. By using Red Hat OpenShift with F5 Distributed Cloud Network Connect, customers can more seamlessly connect their Red Hat OpenShift environments to public clouds, edge sites, and data centers—and then more easily monitor the health and safety of these environments from a centralized console.
- Automating F5 solutions: Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform offers an optimized foundation for deploying mission-critical automation across the business. Customers can use Event-Driven Ansible with F5 solutions to more reliably automate F5 networking, application delivery, and security solutions—helping them manage these operations with greater efficiency and resilience.
Simplifying solution delivery for systems integrators
Today, many large enterprises purchase their technology solutions from channel partners rather than directly from vendors. By simplifying access to these and other joint solutions, our goal is to meet customers where they already buy.
For systems integrators, there are several benefits to this approach. They get early access to F5 product releases and demos to enhance their expertise around our solutions. In addition, they can obtain the technology and promotional materials they need to showcase our solutions to customers. And they receive our solutions already optimized and validated for integration, making it faster to deliver value to customers.
This multi-partner collaboration is also aligned with the goals of Red Hat’s new partner program, which recognizes that channel partners are a strong driver of solutions in the market. The Red Hat partner program, led by Stefanie Chiras, Senior Vice President of Partner Ecosystem Success, takes a holistic approach to ecosystem collaboration to help solve customer business challenges through the development of jointly developed and supported solutions. Red Hat’s approach matches our own here at F5, and we’re excited to extend our collaboration with Red Hat and systems integrators to drive even greater innovation.
One partner that’s working with F5 and Red Hat to bring solutions to customers is World Wide Technology (WWT). Both an F5 Platinum Partner and a Red Hat Premier Business Partner, WWT offers webinars and instructional videos highlighting F5 solutions with Red Hat and also demonstrates these solutions for customers in its Advanced Technology Center, a robust, digitally-accessible lab environment. Moreover, its sales and integration capabilities enable our customers to optimize costs as they build, test, and deploy fully integrated solutions using a single point of contact.
“Our close collaboration with F5 and Red Hat is a win for everyone,” says Jim Stuckey, Automation Practice Director at WWT. “It’s a win for F5 and Red Hat because WWT can help extend their solutions into more markets. It’s a win for us because it elevates the expertise we provide our customers. And it’s a win for our customers because they obtain faster time-to-value as they implement F5 solutions on Red Hat platforms.”
Faster time-to-value for customers
For customers, this multi-partner collaboration means more opportunities to test our solutions in lab and demo environments and helps them capitalize on the deep expertise systems integrators bring across different platforms. At the same time, customers can deploy their integrated solutions faster while obtaining the expertise and support they need from a channel partner—leading to swifter returns on their technology investments.
Among our customers working through a systems integrator is Colorado Community College System (CCCS), the state’s largest provider of higher education. CCCS wanted to use Red Hat OpenShift to support three F5 BIG-IP products to take greater advantage of the automation capabilities of their F5 solutions.
By collaborating with enterprise technology partner One Technology, the college system was able to accomplish this goal, while integrating F5 and Red Hat technologies with its existing ERP system and other solutions. CCCS also increased the return on its tech investments and achieved the cloud-readiness it needed. As Joe Tarnow, Manager of System Administration and DBA Services at CCCS put it: “One Technology got us up to speed on the F5 solution right away… They were as involved as we were in making things work.”
Are you a systems integrator interested in selling F5 and Red Hat solutions? Check out our partner portal where you can find co-branded assets, resources on joint solutions, and workshop kits and tools to help you accelerate your customers’ digital transformation journey.
Planning to be at Red Hat Summit? Stop by Booth 410 to chat with F5 experts and experience demos of our joint solutions. And while you’re at it, please join us courtside for a friendly game of pickleball.