TOKYO – F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV) today announced that it has signed an agreement with Rakuten Mobile, Inc. (Rakuten Mobile) to provide an extensive suite of application security services for the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP), a next-generation “operator enabling platform.”

On April 8, 2020, Rakuten Mobile launched its full-scale commercial mobile carrier service as a mobile network operator. Rakuten Mobile has adopted an innovative, modern, and agile application development approach in creating its mobile network. F5 will support Rakuten Mobile further in their agile application development efforts, including containerization and microservices at scale, in a multi-cloud environment.

F5 Service Provider solutions will help the RCP accelerate application development and deployment in a multi-cloud environment to enhance and secure the user experience by:

• Deploying intelligent traffic management on a unified platform, simplifying the delivery of network services for faster customer response and personalized offers for increased revenue
• Providing a carrier-grade firewall for a stateful, full-proxy application security solution securing the core-to-edge networks at massive scale
• Implementing an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) to perform traffic inspection and protocol adherence for service provider protocols as a preventative security measure​​​​​​​

This new phase of partnership marks the addition of further use cases within the RCP to bolster its security and reliability, offering telcos worldwide speedy and cost-efficient deployment of fully virtualized cloud-native telco edge services.

Yuichi Gonda, Regional VP at F5 Networks Japan, commented: “We are delighted to be supporting Rakuten Mobile on their 5G journey to becoming a global telco provider. This demonstrates how F5 solutions deliver and protect apps—from code to customer, reducing telcos’ operational complexity and costs.”

“We built our cloud-native mobile network platform in Japan, but have always intended to take it global,” added Tareq Amin, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and CTO of Rakuten Mobile. “By leveraging technology from partners such as F5, we will have best-in-class offerings for network operators around the world.”