As we speak we’re excited to announce the preview of Palo Alto Networks Cloud Subsequent Technology Firewall (NGFW) for Azure, obtainable 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 huge space community.

Digital WAN’s deep integration with the Palo Alto Networks managed firewall service permits you to 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 crucial parameters and abstracting themselves from the administration of community digital home equipment.

On this weblog, we’ll give attention to 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 via their Digital WAN deployments. As we speak, clients 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 potential 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 totally different visitors flows which can 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 via ExpressRoute circuits, Department/Website-to-site VPN, or Distant consumer/Level-to-site connections.
• ‘V’ stands for VNet—Azure Digital networks internet hosting buyer providers and linked to a Digital WAN hub. It might even be known as spoke VNet.
• ‘I’ stands for web, which suggests the shopper visitors that originates from or terminates within the web and traverses via 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 might also 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 choice.

After clicking “Create”, you’ll be taken to a wizard expertise the place you may configure and customise your Cloud NGFW SaaS deployment. You may customise key networking and safety attributes of your SaaS akin to deciding on public Ips, DNS proxy settings, safety insurance policies, and safety settings.

After the Cloud NGFW has been efficiently provisioned, you may handle your SaaS Firewall by navigating to your Digital Hub -> Third-party suppliers -> SaaS options -> Handle SaaS. Discover right here for extra info on obtainable 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 example the behind-the-scenes workings in Digital WAN, we’ll use East-West (V2V) visitors flows.

As you may see, the complexities of visitors engineering, and infrastructure administration are fully eliminated and the consumer will get to only give attention to securing the suitable 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 clients to guard visitors throughout their whole community. Whereas there are a number of cool and turn-key options constructed into the combination, a number of which can be price calling out are under:

• Machine studying powered NGFW: Cloud NGFW for Azure makes use of AI and machine studying to detect and cease identified, unknown, and zero-day threats, enabling clients 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 provides a bunch of advantages to clients. 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, making certain that clients’ cloud environments are safe and guarded in opposition to cyber threats. Moreover, the combination supplies centralized visibility, offering useful insights into the threats on their community enabling clients to handle their safety insurance policies via their current Panorama console, streamlining administration, permitting their cloud groups to give attention to software migration and new software growth.
• Ease of use: Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW is designed to be extremely straightforward to make use of. Much like Digital WAN product ideas for simplicity and ease of use, this Palo Alto Networks built-in answer permits clients to obtain and deploy the answer straight from the Azure portal in just some minutes, offering immediate safety in opposition to 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 clients the agility and adaptability they should handle their cloud safety whereas specializing in their core enterprise aims.

We would like your suggestions

We look ahead to 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 look ahead to listening to extra about your experiences to include your suggestions into the product.

Be taught extra

For extra info, please discover these assets: