Today at AppWorld, F5 (NASDAQ: FFIV) introduced the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform, the industry’s first Application Delivery Controller (ADC) solution that fully converges high-performance load balancing and traffic management with advanced app and API security capabilities into a single platform. With this platform, F5 is delivering on the promise of a new generation of ADCs—ADC 3.0—purpose-built to meet the extraordinary demands of modern and AI-powered applications.
“AI is accelerating innovation, but also intensifying the high costs, crushing complexity, and escalating cyber risks that have IT and security teams in crisis,” said François Locoh-Donou, President and CEO of F5. “F5 stands alone in its ability to address the challenges of hybrid multicloud architectures. The F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform represents a giant leap forward for organisations, enabling them to overcome complexity and unlock the full potential of AI.”
F5’s upcoming 2025 State of Application Strategy Report found that 96 per cent of organisations are deploying AI models. F5 further estimates that, within three years, 80 per cent of all apps will be AI enabled. AI is here, but most enterprises are ill-equipped to handle the massive amounts of data, complex traffic patterns, and new attack vectors that are inherent in AI applications.
The F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform has been built to address these challenges and is the most complete ADC offering for enterprises operating hybrid multicloud infrastructures. It delivers:
- Complete delivery and security for every app in a single platform that simplifies management for IT and security teams.
- Deployment anywhere in any form factor to run seamlessly across today’s diverse IT environments.
- Single policy, unified management across all locations to reduce complexity and improve efficiency.
- Rich analytics and insights that are relevant and actionable to improve performance and strengthen the security of today’s complex applications.
- Fully programmable data planes that enable automated deployment and custom functionality so organisations can effectively adapt to changing needs.
- Full lifecycle automation that allows teams to focus on delivering innovation and stop drowning in maintenance tasks.
The platform is API-driven and enables consistent policies for every app, in every environment, across all form factors. The product of years of investment and innovation, the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform operates seamlessly across high-performance hardware in on-premises data centres, next-generation software in virtualised and hybrid environments, and SaaS for cloud-native environments.
The F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform converges what are currently point solutions to address critical needs such as high-performance load balancing, multicloud networking, full web app and API security, and AI gateway capabilities.
“AI is driving innovation while exposing businesses to unprecedented levels of complexity and risk,” said Christopher Rodriguez, Research Director, Cybersecurity and Trust at IDC. “The convergence of application delivery and security capabilities will be indispensable for companies striving to stay ahead in this rapidly evolving landscape.”
Learn more about the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform at f5.com.
Unveiling New Platform Solutions and Innovation
F5 also announced several new solutions and capabilities as part of a commitment to continued innovation in the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform. These solutions enable F5 customers to leverage the power of AI to reduce complexity, simplify operations, and strengthen security postures for every app. These innovations include:
- F5 AI Gateway: F5 AI Gateway is now generally available for organisations looking to streamline interactions between applications, APIs, and large language models (LLMs) and drive wider enterprise AI adoption. This powerful containerised solution optimises performance, observability, and protection capabilities—all leading to reduced costs. AI Gateway gives operations and security teams a seamless path to adopting AI services through significantly improved data output quality and a superior user experience.
- AI assistant for F5 NGINX One: Following last year’s release of an AI assistant for F5 Distributed Cloud Services, F5 is bringing this capability to NGINX One starting today. The tool is powered by the F5 AI Data Fabric and serves as an intelligent partner to stretched NetOps, SecOps, DevOps, and platform ops teams. The AI assistant for NGINX One uses a natural language interface to streamline operations and improve ROI by helping teams configure and optimise application delivery, preemptively address threats, and identify anomalies before they impact production.
- AI assistant for F5 BIG-IP and iRules code generation and explanation: Later this year, F5 will also release an AI assistant for BIG-IP to bring a new level of automation and intelligence to iRules. Customers will be able to automate the creation, maintenance, and optimisation of iRules while reducing the time and resources required to effectively manage traffic and securely deliver apps. By leveraging AI, the system generates optimised, validated iRules that adhere to best practices. This improves accuracy while reducing errors, ensuring a reliable and consistent experience for organisations.
- F5 VELOS CX1610 chassis and BX520 blade: F5 is introducing powerful new additions to its VELOS product line, giving service providers and large enterprises a unified and customisable solution to optimise data-intensive workloads of AI and other modern apps. The new VELOS CX1610 chassis and BX520 400-Gbps blade scale to multi-terabits of throughput, suitable for the highest performance NEBS-compliance standards and supporting the most demanding 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) services. The F5 VELOS product line provides optimised data packet routing, granular security, load balancing, and low latency, enabling the data ingest and real-time data needs that AI solutions require.
Supporting Resources
- Resource: Introducing the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform
- Resource: The Application Delivery Top 10
- Resource: F5 AI Gateway
- Press Release: F5’s Multi-terabit VELOS Hardware Powers AI Workloads for
