F5 and Oracle plan to bring F5 web app and API protection to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

F5 Inc. and Oracle Corp. have announced plans to integrate F5's web application and API protection technology into Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). The partnership is currently based on a nonbinding memorandum of understanding. F5's security technology will be directly integrated into OCI, allowing security, application, and platform teams to protect critical applications and APIs from sophisticated attacks without requiring specialized security expertise.

The companies aim to provide a solution for cloud teams that can keep pace with threats without adding operational complexity. John Maddison, F5's chief marketing officer, highlighted the increasing speed of AI-powered attacks, stating that they can find and exploit vulnerabilities faster than traditional methods can patch them.

Oracle and F5 believe that AI runtime defense is the key to addressing this issue, as it enables virtual patching to shield exposed systems until permanent fixes are implemented. Oracle's senior vice president of global partnerships, kp Papamiltiadis, emphasized that F5's application security expertise would complement OCI, backed by Oracle's cloud infrastructure and support.

Oracle already offers a web application firewall service on OCI, which can protect applications hosted on-premises or in other clouds against threats such as bots, application-layer distributed denial-of-service attacks, and SQL injection. While the announcement did not specify how F5's technology would interact with Oracle's existing firewall, both vendors have a long-standing relationship.

F5 has worked with Oracle since 2001, primarily on application delivery for Oracle software like E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft. Oracle also utilizes F5 products for some of its enterprise applications and cloud services. F5 now offers its delivery and security products under the Application Delivery and Security Platform, which includes AI Guardrails and AI Red Team tools.

This partnership follows a recent collaboration between F5 and data security company Forcepoint LLC. The Oracle announcement came a day after F5 reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $917 million, up 13% from the previous year. Neither company has provided a timeline for the OCI integration or revealed which F5 products will be included.

Pricing details were also not disclosed. The collaboration does not create a partnership or joint venture between F5 and Oracle.