F5 Networks Signs Deal with Standard Life

F5 Networks, Inc., an application delivery networking provider, has signed a deal with Standard Life to enhance the company’s application security.

 

F5 Networks (News - Alert) officials said that in a project supported by information security services specialist Vistorm, the solution leverages F5 BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM (News - Alert)) software running on multiple F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) devices.

 

Standard Life officials said they selected F5’s BIG-IP ASM solution selected after a rigorous evaluation of available technology and a successful proof-of-concept.

 

Officials with the Edinburgh-based company said that with F5 solutions at Standard Life, BIG-IP’s powerful layer 7 load balancing capability becomes a key enabler of the Service Orientated Architecture (SOA) architecture, while the functionality of ASM supports compliance with PCI (News - Alert) DSS, HIPAA, Basel II, and SOX regulations without the need for application changes or rewrites, or separate devices to perform different tasks.

 

“Our vision for the next generation of our world-class SOA platform includes removing scalability barriers, increasing security, and maximizing service capabilities with minimal impact to the user experience,” said Martin Symmers, SOA Enterprise Architect at Standard Life, in a statement.

 

Standard Life is a major asset managing company headquartered in Edinburgh and operating across the globe.

 

Established in 1825, Standard Life provides life assurance and pensions, investment management, banking, and healthcare insurance products to more than 6.5 million customers worldwide.

 

“We concluded that, to deliver on our goals, we needed to implement powerful application-layer load balancing and security capabilities while minimizing infrastructure complexity,” said Symmers.

 

Joe Phillips, SOA Enterprise Architect at Standard Life, said that F5 Networks currently offers the company the best fit for the requirements and has a track record that gives the company the confidence to put their solution at the heart of architecture.

 

“During the competitive evaluation, F5 came up against some very well-known companies, but the capabilities of ASM and the agile BIG-IP application delivery platform -- coupled with Vistorm’s strategic risk-based Complete Information Security approach -- were the differentiators,” said Dan Turner, CTO at Vistorm.

 

Turner said that the solution met all of Standard Life’s core requirements and will be an effective base from which to launch further planned IT initiatives as well.

 

“We are delighted to have won the contract to serve Standard Life’s infrastructure and application needs,” said Mark Weir, country manager, Scotland, at F5.

 

Weir said that it underlines F5’s leadership of the Application Delivery Controller marketplace, and is further evidence of F5’s considerable success in the financial services sector.