2017 is shaping up to be the year of safer apps delivered via cloud computing with organisations showing high interest in security, migration to cloud, and increasing reliance on application services.
This is according to an F5 Networks annual report: The State of Application Delivery, which surveyed 2 000 IT, networking, application, and security professionals worldwide to examine the role application services play in allowing enterprises to deploy apps faster, smarter and more securely.
With the increasing importance of applications as the currency of the digital economy, it is no surprise that the average number of app services in use by organisations increased from 11 in 2016 to 14 today, says F5 Networks. The study says three quarters of respondents have 10 or more services deployed - up from 60% in 2016. The average organisation is planning 17 deployments in the next 12 months, it adds. As a result, businesses are under pressure to deliver applications faster, smarter and more securely, says F5 Networks.
The study says as the threat landscape continues to evolve in complexity, speed and availability were for the first time deemed less important than overall application protection. The most important services cited including network firewalls, anti-virus and secure sockets layer virtual private network solutions, it adds.
Cloud adoption
Furthermore, the study says more businesses are moving more apps to the cloud. With one out of five respondents planning to have more than half of their applications in the cloud by 2017, and four out of five adopting multi-cloud environments, organisations are expanding cloud computing deployments.
It notes the highest area of investment for 2017 in Europe, Middle East and Africa was the use of on-premises private clouds (46%). Almost half of respondents (48%) stated the private cloud would have the most strategic importance to their organisation in the next two to five years, and that three quarters (76%) of their apps would be in the cloud by 2017, says the study.
The most important security feature was that the cloud should provide the same level of security and auditability as other similar on premises services (61%), says F5. This hints that organisations are concerned about the disruption moving to the cloud can have on operations, it adds.
Globally, organisations with the most confidence in their ability to withstand an attack have expanded beyond a simple perimeter approach to security, says the report. Many plan to deploy distributed denial of service mitigation, domain name system security extensions protection, and a Web application firewall in the next year, it notes.
Private and public cloud deployments are growing no matter whether apps are deployed on-premises, in a private cloud, or in a public cloud, says the study. Organisations will continue to rely on app services to keep their critical apps secure, available, and performing up to expectations, it says.
"Businesses are putting their money where their strategy is when it comes to cloud," said Martin Walshaw, senior engineer, F5 Networks. There are still challenges to overcome but the global shift to embrace hybrid scenario clearly shows a growing recognition that agility and speed can be achieved without compromising security, provided there are consistent policies and solutions in place."
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