As we speak we’re excited to announce the preview of Palo Alto Networks Cloud Subsequent Era Firewall (NGFW) for Azure, out there as a software program as a service (SaaS) providing in Azure Digital WAN. Azure Digital WAN (vWAN), networking as a service brings networking, safety, and routing functionalities collectively to simplify networking in Azure. With ease of use and ease in-built, vWAN is a one-stop store to attach, defend, route visitors, and monitor your vast space community.
Digital WAN’s deep integration with the Palo Alto Networks managed firewall service means that you can benefit from the simplicity of a SaaS safety providing with out the hassles of managing provisioning, scaling, resiliency, software program updates, or routing. A SaaS mannequin permits a buyer to deploy an answer by merely supplying essential parameters and abstracting themselves from the administration of community digital home equipment.
On this weblog, we are going to deal with the use case, adopted by a short overview of the behind-the-scenes secret sauce that makes it occur, after which understanding key Palo Alto Networks differentiating options.
The use case
Clients of Azure Digital WAN can now use Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure to safe their visitors by means of their Digital WAN deployments. As we speak, prospects with digital hubs throughout the globe can select to guard their visitors destined to on-premises, by deploying an Azure Firewall or a third-party community digital equipment (NVA). Clients now have the extra skill to have the ability to deploy Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW as a SaaS answer and safe any potential visitors flows of their vWAN deployment.
The completely different visitors flows which might be supported by a buyer’s vWAN deployment are illustrated under. Flows are numbered within the desk under with the next assumptions:
- ‘B’ stands for a Department which is a buyer’s on-premises community linked to Azure by means of ExpressRoute circuits, Department/Website-to-site VPN, or Distant person/Level-to-site connections.
- ‘V’ stands for VNet—Azure Digital networks internet hosting buyer companies and linked to a Digital WAN hub. It could even be known as spoke VNet.
- ‘I’ stands for web, which implies the shopper visitors that originates from or terminates within the web and traverses by means of Azure Digital WAN.
- ‘H’ stands for Azure Digital hub.
- Visitors flows throughout a single hub are visitors flows originating and terminating on endpoints linked to the identical digital hub. These may additionally be known as Intra-hub flows.
- Inter-hub flows are visitors flows that traverse throughout 2 digital hubs to get to the vacation spot.
Person expertise
Clients can add Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW to an Azure Digital WAN Hub within the Azure portal. After a hub is created, click on on the hub identify and navigate to Third-party Suppliers -> SaaS options –> Create SaaS and select the Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW possibility.
After clicking “Create”, you’ll be taken to a wizard expertise the place you possibly can configure and customise your Cloud NGFW SaaS deployment. You may customise key networking and safety attributes of your SaaS similar to deciding on public Ips, DNS proxy settings, safety insurance policies, and safety settings.
After the Cloud NGFW has been efficiently provisioned, you possibly can handle your SaaS Firewall by navigating to your Digital Hub -> Third-party suppliers -> SaaS options -> Handle SaaS. Discover right here for extra data on out there choices.
How does this all work inside Digital WAN
As talked about within the prior part, Digital WAN helps a number of flows. As an instance the behind-the-scenes workings in Digital WAN, we are going to use East-West (V2V) visitors flows.
As you possibly can see, the complexities of visitors engineering, and infrastructure administration are utterly eliminated and the person will get to only deal with securing the best safety insurance policies for his or her community visitors.
Key highlights of the Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure integration with Digital WAN
Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure integrates with Azure Digital WAN deployments, enabling prospects to guard visitors throughout their complete community. Whereas there are a number of cool and turn-key options constructed into the combination, a number of which might be value calling out are under:
- Machine studying powered NGFW: Cloud NGFW for Azure makes use of AI and machine studying to detect and cease recognized, unknown, and zero-day threats, enabling prospects to remain forward of subtle adversaries.
- Constant Safety and Administration from On-Premises to Azure: Cloud NGFW for Azure is built-in with Panorama, Palo Alto Networks coverage administration answer. The mixing of Panorama with Cloud NGFW for Azure gives a bunch of advantages to prospects. Firstly, it permits seamless safety coverage extension from on-prem to Azure, simplifying operations and lowering administrative workload and complete price of possession. Extra importantly, this integration enforces the identical excessive requirements of safety within the cloud, guaranteeing that prospects’ cloud environments are safe and guarded towards cyber threats. Moreover, the combination offers centralized visibility, offering priceless insights into the threats on their community enabling prospects to handle their safety insurance policies by means of their present Panorama console, streamlining administration, permitting their cloud groups to deal with utility migration and new utility growth.
- Ease of use: Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW is designed to be extremely simple to make use of. Just like Digital WAN product ideas for simplicity and ease of use, this Palo Alto Networks built-in answer permits prospects to acquire and deploy the answer instantly from the Azure portal in only a few minutes, offering on the spot safety towards cyber threats. The answer can be painless to function as Palo Alto Networks takes care of scaling, resilience, and software program updates. This integration offers prospects the agility and adaptability they should handle their cloud safety whereas specializing in their core enterprise targets.
We would like your suggestions
We sit up for persevering with to construct out Azure Digital WAN and including extra capabilities sooner or later. We encourage you to check out Azure Digital WAN and the Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW SaaS and sit up for listening to extra about your experiences to include your suggestions into the product.
Be taught extra
For extra data, please discover these sources: