Taking Customers to AWS, Through Our Channel

October is a special time at F5. Not only does fall take hold, but it marks the beginning of our new fiscal year. Similar to the new calendar year, it is a time of planning and goal setting for the business year ahead.

For me and my team, F5’s worldwide channel organization, this means continuing to approach our work with partners and customers in a cloud-first mindset. We’re increasing our work with born-in-the-cloud managed service providers to bring our multi-cloud application services to customer deployments in public cloud environments. At the same time, we’re continuing to work closely with many of our long-time channel partners to build out their cloud migration and enablement practices. There will be a lot more to say on those fronts in the next few months, but first I wanted to discuss two important announcements that exemplify the ways we’re helping customers manage the increasingly complex, multi-cloud reality.

AWS Channel Opportunity Registration Program

This week, AWS Marketplace launched their first Channel Opportunity Registration Program, and we are excited to announce that we are amongst the few selected AWS partners to participate! This opportunity registration program allows F5 partners to have an additional option for their BIG-IP Virtual Edition procurement platform without losing visibility into opportunities. It also allows F5 to facilitate deal protection for the opportunities, and incentives for closed transactions on AWS Marketplace.

Integrating F5’s deep partner community into this new AWS Marketplace program is a critical component of giving our customers control and security as they move their apps to the cloud. We are aligning our efforts with those of AWS to ensure that partners are empowered to simplify the buying process and best meet their customers' needs.

F5 Partners that are already part of the F5 UNITY Partner Program can receive training, gain access to the opportunity registration form, and start registering opportunities immediately! Contact AWSTeam@f5.com & aws-mp-channel@amazon.com to learn more.

AWS Security Competency

One of the core foundations of the public cloud, and perhaps one of the least understood, is the Shared Responsibility Model. This is the framework that dictates which security controls are the responsibility of the CSP and which are the responsibility of the customer. This means that while providers like AWS protect the security *of* the cloud, customers are on the hook for security of data and applications *in* the cloud. This means they need confidence third-party security solutions are designed for and will work in specific public cloud environments.

Which leads me to the next announcement that F5 has obtained the AWS Security Competency certification for our Web Application Firewall solution. Available in the AWS marketplace, the F5 WAF solution secures applications against L7 DDoS attacks, malicious bot traffic, application vulnerabilities, and all OWASP top 10 threats, while leveraging automated learning capabilities to prevent even the most sophisticated attacks from reaching your servers.

To join this very select group of partners, we met a rigorous set of qualifications set forth by AWS that demonstrated technical proficiency and customer success. The recognition gives customers the confidence that our industry-leading WAF solution will work seamlessly as they deploy applications in AWS via automated templates for advanced application services.

For cloud-first partners like 2nd Watch, the Security Competency includes comprehensive AWS-certified tool sets to accelerate customer migration and simplify ongoing support. But don’t take my word for it:

“2nd Watch is 100% focused on helping enterprises successfully adopt the public cloud,” says Jeff Aden, EVP of Marketing & Strategic Business Development & Co-Founder. “We have a world-class team that our customers rely on for guidance and support in migrating and managing their workloads. We’ve demonstrated public cloud proficiency through proven success with hundreds of customers as well as completing 10 different AWS competencies and certifications. 2nd Watch emphasizes the importance of certifications and looks to partner with AWS technical partners, like F5, who have also met the high standards on the AWS Competency program.”

2018 will undoubtedly be a big year. And while it’s is a time of tremendous change, our focus and that of our partners will continue to be helping companies effectively, efficiently, and securely manage the complexities of the multi-cloud world, allowing them to deploy applications faster, smarter, and safer.