F5 Survey Highlights App Modernization and Edge Computing in Asia Pacific

F5 made its 2021 State of Application Strategy report available on its website. This is the seventh edition of this annual report. In the report, F5 identifies several trends, many of which are significantly affected as organizations revamp digital experiences to address COVID-era consumers and their needs.

Companies have significantly sped up their digital transformation efforts in the past year. This is a theme which will stay relevant even after the pandemic has passed. There are fewer in-person interactions as there were in pre-COVID times. Therefore, apps and the digital experiences they facilitate, have become crucial for an organization’s presence and ability to thrive in this scenario.

Kara Sprague, EVP and GM, BIG-IP at F5, talked about the report. She noted that the latest edition of the report "highlights the many contrasting priorities that IT teams are currently facing".

Talking about the use and application of data generated by organizations, she said that there is always a dilemma of going for flexibility and convenience of for security. However, organizations generate more data than ever before, all the while "seeking ways to extract meaningful insights from that data”.

She also noted that the pandemic forced organizations to address “a myriad of operational considerations, concerns, and opportunities to be addressed simultaneously almost overnight". F5 also looks for companies that rely more on automation. That ensures low operating costs and gives the companies room to increasingly tailor apps to create better customer-centric digital experiences.

Digitization is happening at a very fast pace. As such, many IT teams almost failed to keep up with the way things are changing in the apps ecosystem. In today's scenario, improving connectivity, reducing latency, ensuring security, and leveraging data insights are now even more essential.

Adam Judd, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific, China and Japan, at F5 noted how every organization is in the digital experience business. Judd highlighted the increasingly central role apps are taking in business strategy. He noted that this was a clear indicator of "the pivotal role that apps continue to play in our economy”.

Talking about this year's report, Judd noted the “clear reflection of this growing trend" in the same. He shared that businesses continue to invest in their apps portfolio. This makes it crucial for them to make sure their apps are able to "adapt, scale and self-heal across different app environments".

Continued Modernization of Apps and Architectures to Enable Better Digital Experiences

87% of organizations operate both modern and traditional architectures, with modernization deemed necessary when legacy systems are too rigid to adapt to rapidly changing business conditions, according to the F5 survey. 77% respondents reported that they are modernizing internal or customer-facing applications at the moment. APIs are the primary method of modernization as the former is able to combine capabilities of traditional and modern components. Also, there a growing percentage of organizations maintain multiple app architectures. The F5 survey also confirmed that as-a-service and managed service offerings are still seen as replacements to some apps where there are cloud-friendly alternatives.

F5 and The Rise of the Edge as Containerization Expands

Edge computing generally refers to operations performed outside of a centralized data center. Edge computing is an important method to reduce latency and increase the real-time responsiveness. This is because employees and consumers are logging on from increasingly distributed locations. Accordingly, the edge must evolve to better support modular application components such as containers residing across multiple cloud locations. In addition to promoting faster and more efficient deployments, placing containerized applications at the edge can improve scalability and the customer experience. Survey results note that 76% of organizations have implemented or are actively planning edge deployments. These companies are also targeting improving application performance and collecting data/enabling analytics as the primary drivers.

Accelerating Growth in SaaS and Cloud Deployments, Balancing Flexibility and Security

The percentage of apps hosted in the cloud is rising. F5 reported that 68% respondents host at least a part of security and delivery technologies in the cloud. Simultaneously, organizations are positioning themselves to address the architectural complexity that results from adding SaaS and edge solutions. This helps them maintain on-premises and multi-cloud environments while modernizing apps. Successful integration of these elements within a cohesive application strategy will require up-leveling how tools, skill sets, IT processes, and analytics are applied across dynamic architectures. Unsurprisingly, security continues to be a key driver. This is in line with efforts to stay ahead of attackers which requires more capabilities than what organizations can manage. Further highlighting this challenge, SaaS for security was the top strategic trend among respondents.

The Importance of Telemetry in Meeting Evolving Customer and Business Expectations

Making use of telemetry to turn large amounts of data into business insights is important for adaptive applications. However, 95% respondents think that they are missing performance, security, and availability insights. This shows a need for a clearer end-to-end picture than they can get. There was a general agreement on the topic. They said that the top 3 missing insights were - root cause of app issues, performance degradation and potential attack details. Nearly 3/4th of respondents intend to leverage AI to better use telemetry data. What's more, more than half are looking toward AI to help their organizations transition to better applications. These applications will be capable to automatically adapt to defend themselves and respond to changing conditions.

The report represents more than 1,500 respondents worldwide, with a significant portion of respondents coming from Asia Pacific. The respondents come from a variety of industries, organization sizes, and professional roles. Basically, the survey focused on IT decision-makers. The survey highlights the priorities, concerns, and expectations of those responsible for meeting the challenges of today’s digital economy. The responses form a perspective of how organizations are evolving strategies to better serve current and future needs of customers.