Agility in a Time of Disruption

May 12-14, F5 hosted Agility, the industry-leading event for architects, engineers, and developers to learn how building, managing, and securing applications in multi-cloud environments can accelerate digital transformation and deliver better customer experiences. On-demand content is available now.

We are living in an extraordinary time that is having profound impact on every one of our professional and personal lives. Just as we are individually finding ways to adapt to our new normal of social distancing, working from home, caring for loved ones from afar, and acting as a teacher’s assistant for our children, every company in every industry around the world is also adapting to this new reality. This means helping our employees and companies thrive (and in many cases survive). To some this has presented unrelenting challenges, and to others a wealth of opportunities—in all cases we’ve had to pivot to shifting demands while finding ways to innovate. Providing access to remote workers alone has led to massive strains on network resources, application usage spikes, and expanding threat surface areas.

Figuring out the best path forward personally and professionally as the tides constantly shift with imperfect information and a lack of any sort of playbook has been an adventure to say the least. If there is some solace in all of this, it is that we are in it together. We are connected by shared experiences and shared challenges which has been incredibly helpful as we figure this out—together.

At F5, we talk about being Human First. This means understanding and empathizing with each other, with teammates, with customers, with our communities. We believe this understanding, this desire to connect and to help is in our DNA, it is a part of our code as humans. Code is also the foundation for the technology we have come to rely on more than ever during the crisis—the applications we use to stay connected to family, friends and coworkers, to attend school, to get food delivered to our doorstep.

This crisis has presented many organizations (and individuals) with a choice: do you embrace this change to emerge stronger than before, or do you press pause?

For many, this as an opportunity to accelerate digital initiatives, to meet new challenges, find areas for growth and efficiency. The healthcare industry, for example, is dramatically transforming how they treat patients. This is born of necessity but will forever improve treatments, operations, and procedures. New technologies are under development to help detect and treat COVID-19 at a speed once thought impossible, while telemedicine solutions are rapidly expanding to reach home-bound patients. Individuals and organizations throughout healthcare are rising the challenge, embracing change, and transforming. There are examples of this across every industry, from financial services to manufacturing to government, to retail.

But with this transformation comes choices and complexity, complexity that so many of you, F5 customers, are on the frontlines of managing.

Agility: A time to share and learn from one another

Several years ago, we began a multi-year strategy aimed at helping you manage the complexities of digital transformation. From sprawling application estates to siloed vendor toolsets, it has become increasingly more difficult for organizations to take stock of all the applications within their environments. This end-to-end view is required for the consistent security policy management, understanding of shortfalls in application performance and maintenance of certificates (e.g. SSL) that keep operations running as end users expect. This is why we’ve made it our mission at F5 to offer the most comprehensive and effective set of services along the application data path, from code to customer.

We also recognize you are looking for more than just products and solutions, you want to learn from others’ experiences, from expertise at F5 and from those who have pioneered the path you’re headed down. Learning from others helps us see around corners and avoid unnecessary speedbumps and walls. I’m so glad we’ve been able to pivot our in-person Agility event to one that’s virtual. These three days of learning and hands-on sessions are designed with you in mind—we aim to provide key insights into the future of building, securing, and optimizing multi-cloud application environments.

During our keynote sessions, you’ll hear from our key product executives: Kara Sprague, EVP and GM of BIG-IP Product Group, will demonstrate how an integrated set of open, extensible services can help you more effectively manage and secure your applications across multiple platforms. John Morgan, VP and GM of Security Solutions, will dig into how you can reduce your risk surface area by building security into every part of your application infrastructure. And, our CTO Geng Lin will provide a look at how our unified architecture vision will deliver actionable business value through AI-driven insights from across your application stack.

From there, curated on-demand breakouts and demos will allow you to learn what you want, when you want. You’ll have the opportunity to hear from engineers and product teams on everything from scaling VPN access to accommodate an increase in remote workers, to deploying and securing production applications in microservices environments. There will also be sessions with experts like Ray Pompon, Director of F5 Labs, on the value of threat intelligence to improving your application security posture; and Cindy Borovick, Business Intelligence Director, providing insights from our State of Application Services Report on the benefits organizations are seeing from accelerating and scaling their digital transformation initiatives.

Take a look at the complete agenda, and register if you haven’t already done so. Your registration will give you access on the Agility website to every keynote and breakout session on-demand, for free.

The learning doesn’t stop with this event. On June 9–10, we will be holding dozens of guided and self-directed labs for practitioners looking to build new skills and refine current ones. These will provide hands-on experience implementing and managing F5 and partner solutions across different environments and scenarios.

We are also planning a broad range of virtual trainings, webinars, and events through the coming months—all aimed at supporting your path to transformation and enabling you to deliver business impact through the deployment, performance, and security of your applications.

Thank you for the work you are doing every day, and thank you for trusting F5.

This article has been updated following the event. Please see this post on F5's DevCentral for additional information on accessing Agility content on-demand.