F5
applications at layers 4-7 . That simple , layered OSI model has changed , Lin comments . “ The stack has become blurred in this converged world . We need to look at partnerships from a customer-driven lens .” He offers the example of the long-standing partnership between F5 and VMware , companies that overlap in some respects but which define areas in which they complement one another to serve the needs of common customers . This kind of relationship , he says , will increasingly define future partnerships .
Where gaps show up in the company ’ s capabilities and which it must move fast to fill , F5 has been quick to acquire . “ Our acquisition strategy is clear ,” Lin says . “ NGINX addresses developer needs , the Shape acquisition strengthens our analytics capabilities , and Volterra gives us the edge presence and addresses multi-cloud operational challenges . These are capabilities we couldn ' t have developed in-house , at least not fast enough to meet the circumstances in which we found ourselves .”
Over the last years , many enterprises have come to realize that – unlike bornin-the-cloud digital businesses such as Google , Amazon , and Uber – they have not yet fully digitized the processes by which they interact with their customers . Enabling digital experiences takes globalscale application delivery , security , and rich data processing .
“ Such a Google-like in-house environment wouldn ' t be replicated even in Tier One enterprises ,” says Lin . “ The demand for a common application-oriented distribution layer that marries enterprises ’ global users and distributed workloads across multicloud environments is huge . I came to F5 because CEO François ' vision is to transform F5 into the leader for this application-oriented distribution layer , a vision we call adaptive applications . I wanted to help F5 reach the vision .”
This exciting vision played a big part in attracting Geng Lin to F5 , where he is now able to influence a huge global technology endeavor .
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