US-based F5 Networks has partnered with EnterWeb of the EOH Group, to build and train a local channel infrastructure to provide application delivery networking (ADN) solutions to the southern African market.
The move forms part of F5`s strategy to expand its 45% share of the ADN market in North America, Europe and Asia into Africa and the Middle East. It has been timed to capitalise on the business growth in the emerging economies of the region, the company says.
"The time is right, particularly for SA, as the local economy begins to grow and organisations increasingly seek to deploy core applications over networks. EnterWeb provides a perfect fit for F5 because of its experience in network traffic optimisation," says Paul Sherry, F5 sales director for the EMEA region.
EnterWeb MD Andries Louw adds that although security, speed and availability are issues that face application delivery over networks around the world, these problems are more acute in SA because of bandwidth costs and constraints. "ADN is applicable to any industry where application efficiency and availability is important, such as the financial, media, parcel delivery and telecommunications industries."
"The F5 product set sits between the application and the end-user to manage each piece of traffic on a network to increase its performance, secure it, and ensure its availability, based on an established set of rules," Sherry explains.
Alluding to F5`s progress to leadership in Gartner`s ADN magic quadrant in November 2005, Sherry says the company`s software platform is the strongest differentiator because it runs across a range of hardware to optimise delivery from any application to the network layer.
According to Sherry, F5 is committed to training and certifying a select group of local channel partners through its EnterWeb distributor to raise awareness of F5`s ADN technology and broaden the local market established through international partners such as Oracle and SAP.
"EnterWeb will be responsible for F5`s channel development programme in Africa and will offer basic and advanced training to all suppliers that form part of the channel," says Louw. He emphasises that skills transfer will form an important part of EnterWeb`s activities in the region.
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