F5 has expanded its cloud-native application delivery portfolio with the launch of F5 NGINXaaS for Google Cloud, a fully managed, application delivery-as-a-service offering developed in collaboration with Google Cloud.
The move reflects growing enterprise demand for simplified, scalable application delivery and security as organisations modernise their application stacks, adopt containers and microservices, and increasingly deploy AI-enabled workloads. By offering NGINX as a managed service on Google Cloud, F5 is positioning itself to address operational complexity that often arises from fragmented load balancing, security, and observability tools.
Available via the Google Cloud Marketplace, F5 NGINXaaS consolidates Layer 4 and Layer 7 load balancing, traffic management, and security controls into a single managed service. The aim, according to F5, is to reduce tool sprawl, lower operational overhead, and help enterprises maintain consistent performance even as application architectures become more dynamic.
As cloud environments evolve to support AI-driven applications and unpredictable traffic patterns, traditional application delivery tools — often designed for static or general-purpose use cases — can struggle to keep pace. F5 NGINXaaS combines capabilities from the F5 Application Delivery and Security Platform with Google Cloud’s native services, giving enterprises a programmable foundation that can be adapted to changing performance and security requirements.
One of the core benefits highlighted is performance optimisation at scale. Intelligent traffic management enables workloads to be distributed efficiently, helping applications maintain responsiveness during demand spikes. At the same time, automated workflows and unified tooling are intended to allow IT teams to focus less on infrastructure management and more on application innovation.
The service also emphasises deep programmability through the NGINX JavaScript (njs) module, enabling teams to embed custom business logic directly into traffic flows. Integration with CI/CD pipelines and platform automation tools further supports modern DevOps practices, allowing application updates and configuration changes to be rolled out without downtime.
From an operations perspective, F5 NGINXaaS offers more than 200 real-time metrics and native integration with Google Cloud’s monitoring and observability tools. This level of visibility is designed to help teams proactively detect performance issues, troubleshoot faster, and maintain reliability across hybrid and multicloud deployments. Advanced deployment models such as blue-green and canary releases, along with A/B testing, are also supported to reduce risk during feature rollouts.
Security is another central pillar of the offering. F5 NGINXaaS provides end-to-end encryption and access controls for APIs, microservices, and containerised applications, supporting SSL/TLS passthrough, mutual TLS (mTLS), and SSL/TLS termination. Identity and access management is reinforced through support for JSON Web Tokens (JWT), OpenID Connect (OIDC), and role-based access control (RBAC), while features such as rate limiting, circuit breaking, and request buffering help maintain application availability during traffic surges.
“Our development efforts with Google Cloud have resulted in a game-changing solution that addresses key challenges in application delivery and security. F5 NGINXaaS for Google Cloud combines enhanced visibility with consistent, dynamic performance, empowering organizations to take full control of their cloud app environments while minimizing operational complexity,” said John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer at F5.
From Google Cloud’s perspective, the partnership aligns with the increasing need for stronger security controls as AI becomes embedded into enterprise applications.
“As businesses integrate AI into their core operations, they face a new set of security challenges. Our partnership with F5 is important in addressing this, giving customers the advanced tools needed to protect their data, maintain control, and innovate confidently in the era of AI,” said Vineet Bhan, Director of Security and Identity Partnerships at Google Cloud.
The launch underscores a broader industry shift toward managed, cloud-native application delivery services that abstract infrastructure complexity while offering enterprises greater programmability, observability, and security — particularly as AI-driven workloads reshape how applications are built, deployed, and scaled.