India embracing technologies to advance their digital transformation strategy , reveals F5 Networks survey

F5 Networks' latest 2019 State of Application Services report, which surveyed 1,872 people in the APAC region including 10% of respondents from India, revealed that Indian organizations are embracing emerging technologies to accelerate their digital transformation projects.

The report found that more than 80 per cent of Indian organizations are employing containers, and taking advantage of agile development methodologies to deliver applications anywhere and securely with confidence. While such shifts present new opportunities for automation and agility, complexity levels also arise; leaving organizations with additional challenges such as enforcing consistent security and optimizing reliable performance standards.

"India is at the intersection of technology, infrastructure, competent workforce and growth, with a vision of becoming a digital economy," said Ravi Kasinadhuni, VP Product Development and India Site Lead, F5 Networks. "This year's State of Application Services report demonstrates that amid companies' efforts towards digital transformation, the ability to enforce consistent security lies at the heart of application services. By maintaining uniform policies, security, and availability across their entire portfolio of applications, organizations can best leverage their application capital - and continue to grow their business."

In its fifth year, the State of Application Services 2019 report surveyed respondents in India, exploring the approaches companies take on their digital transformation journeys and how they optimize application services for competitive advantage, and business impact.

Embracing new and emerging technologies

Indian organizations are embracing digital transformation, with a focus on deploying emerging technologies. In fact, digital transformation continues to be a significant strategic driver in the country, with 94 per cent of Indian organizations currently having or planning to have digital transformation projects, raising the importance and possibilities of big data and real-time threat analysis. These shifts point towards an automated, business-driven and cloud-centric application landscape - yielding enterprises with a competitive edge filled with a diverse range of new business opportunities.

Consistent security and visibility are key in a multi-cloud world

The core challenges associated with multi-cloud adoption remains in enforcing consistent security across all applications. Overall, only 34 per cent of Asia Pacific respondents had the confidence to withstand an application-layer attack. Given that the average organization uses 765 web apps, which pushes application security to the forefront, organizations should look at more than just perimeter security, as network firewalls alone are insufficient in delivering adequate protection for enterprise applications.

In fact, respondents globally have acknowledged that the adoption of a combination of security services (WAF, behaviour analytics, and application access control) would be well-served. Likewise, optimizing application performance visibility is critical to the digital health and success of businesses, and we're already seeing organizations in India prioritizing the adoption of big data analytics (48 per cent), artificial intelligence (56 per cent), and real-time threat analytics (51 per cent) for such a purpose.

Automation and orchestration are on the rise, though barriers remain

Organizations in India are ahead of the automation and orchestration game, with 78 per cent of respondents already deploying such initiatives. Beyond the lack of skilled professionals (40 per cent), the need to adhere to regulations (51 per cent) pose one of the greatest barriers to Indian organizations. As the government looks to strictly enforce regulations such as the recent data privacy laws, given the increased risk of data loss and IP thefts, organizations will have to be agile, or risk hindering their transformation initiatives.

Outside of external factors, business processes are also affected by the lack of a budget for new tools, further hindering technological adoption. These barriers all reflect a need to remove end-user concerns for further infrastructure progression.

As digital transformation continues to change the landscape, deploying consistent application services enables organizations to keep pace and thrive. By maintaining uniform policies, security, and availability across their entire portfolio of applications, organizations can best leverage their application capital - and continue to grow their business. This story is provided by NewsVoir.