This guest blog is written by Nathan Pearce of F5 Networks.

Nathan Pearce draws from over 20 years experience across numerous technologies and verticals, has held positions managing enterprise infrastructure, in vendor engineering, consulting, product management and marketing strategy. Pearce joined F5 Networks in 2006, is currently focused on Cloud and SDN go-to-market, is an experienced speaker, evangelist and technology enthusiast. You can find him on Twitter at @PearceNathan. 

The era of the partnership

A photo posted by Cisco Data Center & SDN (@ciscodc) on Jun 8, 2015 at 6:25pm PDT

We have entered a time that is demanding of the networking innovators that we connect the unconnected, deliver of the agile and unpredictable, secure the ever-changing, and that all this be done quicker than ever before. Organizational expectations are driving increased workload with the expectation of reduced lead times. Few would argue that achieving such requires massive change, not only to an organizations architectural approach but, to how we conduct business.

Synonymous with great change is accelerated innovation-the force behind the almost-electric atmosphere throughout Silicon Valley. For a long time, much of technology innovation has been in the form of, or within, specific devices-improved performance, management or consolidation. Consequently, the results have been within the silos those competencies exist-faster firewalls, improved virtual-server density, and more granular access technology, for example. However, unlike in the past, today's innovation drivers are focused on faster, more agile business, and not just improvements to specific devices.

Delivering on the business expectation of managing exponential increase in agility is a feat no single vendor can solve. Consequently, those leading the trends are embracing the era of the partnership to best meet these expectations, and Cisco and F5 are no strangers to this practice of partnering to achieve a better customer outcome.

What's in a partnership?

Successful partnerships run much deeper than a press release. F5 and Cisco are working together across many different avenues including regular product development sync ups, sales and marketing strategy, consulting services, and training. Is this necessary, you might ask? According to our customers it is integral.

Take Pulsant, for example:

Through our partnership and aligned commitment to better serve customers we are helping out customers:

• Faster time to valuefor the deployment of new applications and services.
• Faster time to reacttowards situation affecting existing applications and services.
• Reduced complexity and operational riskin the management of Cisco's Layer 2/3 networking services and F5's Layer 4 -7 application services.

Remaining competitive in today's era of accelerated change can't be achieved with the right tools, alone.Success comes from choosing partners with aligned vision.