F5 to snatch up UK security specialists

UK boss wants up to 10 new security partners by the end of the year

Application delivery networking (ADN) vendor F5 Networks will look to recruit up to 10 security specialist partners in the UK this year.

The decision comes alongside F5's plans to move on the security market, announced during its 2016 EMEA Agility conference in Vienna, Austria this week.

Keith Bird, who was appointed F5's vice president of UK and Ireland in January, said the US-based networking firm is looking to secure eight to 10 specialist security partners in the UK by the end of the year.

"Given the growth in security, we will add more partners; there is no question about that. We serve eight or nine segments across the security sphere and by my estimates we can serve a $2.4bn (£1.6bn) market in the UK with the products we have right now," he said.

"The biggest challenge is making sure we are being noticed from a security standpoint and our partners think of us as a security vendor. Many partners who think about security do not always think about F5. Our view is that there are probably eight to 10 additional security VARs in terms of partners we want to get by the end of the year."

F5 launched three software products during the EMEA conference, including BIG-IP 12.1, an application delivery controller (ADC) that claims to include more sophisticated security policies; and iWorkflow 2.0, which boasts improved integration between F5 services and software-defined networking solutions from Cisco ACI and VMware NSX.

Despite planning a UK partner recruitment drive, Bird claims that training existing partners on F5's new security offerings, at training centres in London and Chertsey, remains his key priority.

"Our first and foremost priority is to our current partners that need to get the certifications for our new services. First of all, it is about getting them to the level we want them to be at," he said.

Bird joined F5 in January after exiting a senior EMEA role at Symantec.