Monat: Mai 2023

Secure your cloud environment with Cloud Next-Generation Firewall by Palo Alto Networks, an Azure Native ISV Service—now in preview

To support our customers in accelerating their digital transformation journey and protecting their cloud environment against threats, Microsoft is committed to giving customers the best possible options for securing their applications. To accelerate that commitment, we are excited to announce the preview of Cloud Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) for Azure.

Cloud NGFW for Azure is Palo Alto Networks NGFW delivered as a managed service on Microsoft Azure. It enables you to easily utilize Palo Alto Networks best-in-class network security capabilities on Azure, and you can manage it using either Palo Alto Networks Panorama policy management solution or directly from the Azure portal. Cloud NGFW for Azure combines the scalability and reliability of Microsoft Azure with Palo Alto Networks deep expertise in network security.

“At Microsoft, we are dedicated to ensuring that Microsoft Azure is the most trusted and secure cloud platform. With the preview release of the Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure, we are pleased to expand our ecosystem of native ISV solutions and provide customers and developers with more options to meet their security needs. This collaboration between Palo Alto Networks and Microsoft combines the scalability and reliability of Azure with Palo Alto Networks expertise to help safeguard our customers against the latest threats.”—Julia Liuson President, Microsoft Developer Division at Microsoft.

"More and more of our customers are running their business critical applications in Azure and are looking to us to help keep those workloads secure. With Cloud NGFW for Azure we are excited to combine Palo Alto Networks best-in-class security with the scalability and reliability of Azure to provide our mutual customers the ability to run their applications with confidence. As a managed Azure Native ISV service, we are proud to deliver the ease of use customers expect from a cloud native experience.”—Lee Klarich, Chief Product Officer, Palo Alto Networks.

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall is available on Azure

Palo Alto Networks is a leader in cloud security and provides next-generation cybersecurity to thousands of customers globally, across all sectors. With the integration of Cloud NGFW for Azure into the Azure ecosystem we are delivering an integrated experience and empowering a growing ecosystem of developers and customers to help protect their organizations on Azure.

Cloud NGFW for Azure is offered through Azure Marketplace and offers many of the same capabilities as Palo Alto Networks hardware firewalls and virtualized next-generation firewalls as a managed service, making it easily scalable for cloud environments.

We are excited to work with Palo Alto Networks to provide powerful capabilities to Azure customers, including:

Security: Palo Alto Networks provides a rich set of security features thanks to its unique machine learning (ML) powered NGFW. Cloud NGFW for Azure uses AI and ML behind the scenes to detect and stop known, unknown, and zero-day threats, enabling customers to stay ahead of sophisticated adversaries. This advanced technology has allowed Palo Alto Networks to block nearly 5 billion events each day, demonstrating the effectiveness of this solution in providing robust security to customers.
Ease of Use: Cloud NGFW for Azure is designed to be incredibly easy to use, thanks to its Azure-native ISV Service architecture. This enables customers to procure and deploy the solution directly from the Azure portal in just a few minutes, providing instant protection against cyber threats. The solution is also very easy to operate as Palo Alto Networks takes care of scaling, resilience, and software updates. Furthermore, Cloud NGFW for Azure integrates seamlessly with Azure Virtual wide area network (WAN) deployments, enabling customers to protect traffic across their entire network. This integration provides customers with the agility and flexibility they need to manage their cloud security while focusing on their core business objectives.
Consistent Management from On-Prem to Cloud: Cloud NGFW for Azure is integrated with their Panorama policy management solution. This combination offers a host of benefits to our mutual customers. Firstly, it enables seamless security policy extension from on-prem to Azure, simplifying operations and reducing administrative workload and total cost of ownership. More importantly, this integration enforces the same high standards of security in the cloud, ensuring that customers’ cloud environments are secure and protected against cyber threats. Additionally, integration provides centralized visibility, providing valuable insights into the threats on their network from on-prem environments to the cloud. This enables customers to manage their security policies through their existing Panorama console, streamlining management, allowing their cloud teams to focus on application migration and new application development. 

Do more with less

We have invested in a deeply integrated experience with Palo Alto Networks on Azure including some of the key capabilities listed below to help you do more with less.

Seamless end user experience

We collaborated closely with Palo Alto Networks to develop Cloud NGFW for Azure, and tested it with our joint customers. Cloud NGFW for Azure provides a seamless and simplified end user experience for Cloud NGFW for Azure by integrating the deployment, management, billing, and support of the Palo Alto Networks solution on Azure, available via Azure Marketplace.

Cloud NGFW for Azure also provides integrated billing with Azure subscription invoicing, deep integrations with Azure services for role-based access control (RBAC) and identity management, and a unified support model. This service gives the user consistency in performance and security across their portfolio of on-prem and Azure cloud apps by using the same security solution and configurations everywhere. 

Deploy in minutes

Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW is deeply integrated into the Azure ecosystem. Through this deep integration, users can provision a new Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall in a matter of minutes, so they can quickly secure their Azure applications.

Run where you want

Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure can be deployed into both Virtual Networks and Virtual WAN hubs, and integrated with Azure Key Vault so even encrypted communications can be inspected for security. Cloud NGFW for Azure can be deployed into your Virtual Network automatically using a custom solution via service injection, and user-defined routing can be applied to route traffic to-and-from Cloud NGFW for Azure for inspection.

Customers who want a fully managed network-as-a-service with powerful routing can also choose to deploy the solution in a Virtual WA. Virtual WAN abstracts and simplifies the complexity of routing within a large hybrid network that spans on-premises and Azure at-scale. Configuring routing in Virtual WAN to send traffic to Cloud NGFW for Azure as a bump-in-the-wire solution requires just a single click with the Virtual WAN's intelligent routing engine handling the rest of the routing.

Getting started with Cloud NGFW for Azure

Discovery and procuring: Azure customers can find the Palo Alto Networks service listed on Azure Marketplace, review the different purchasing plans offered, and procure it directly with single billing enabled:

Provisioning the Palo Alto Networks resources: Within several clicks, you can deploy Palo Alto Networks service in your desired subscription and datacenter regions with your preferred plan.

Related posts 

Palo Alto Networks Press Release
Palo Alto Networks Announcement Blog
Learn more on Microsoft Learn
Get it now on Azure Marketplace
Read the Azure Virtual WAN announcement blog

Quelle: Azure

Azure Virtual WAN introduces its first SaaS offering

Today we are excited to announce the preview of Palo Alto Networks Cloud Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) for Azure, available as a software as a service (SaaS) offering in Azure Virtual WAN. Azure Virtual WAN (vWAN), networking as a service brings networking, security, and routing functionalities together to simplify networking in Azure. With ease of use and simplicity built in, vWAN is a one-stop shop to connect, protect, route traffic, and monitor your wide area network.

Virtual WAN’s deep integration with the Palo Alto Networks managed firewall service allows you to enjoy the simplicity of a SaaS security offering without the hassles of managing provisioning, scaling, resiliency, software updates, or routing. A SaaS model enables a customer to deploy a solution by simply supplying necessary parameters and abstracting themselves from the management of network virtual appliances.

In this blog, we will focus on the use case, followed by a brief overview of the behind-the-scenes secret sauce that makes it happen, and then understanding key Palo Alto Networks differentiating features.

The use case

Customers of Azure Virtual WAN can now use Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure to secure their traffic through their Virtual WAN deployments. Today, customers with virtual hubs across the globe can choose to protect their traffic destined to on-premises, by deploying an Azure Firewall or a third-party network virtual appliance (NVA). Customers now have the additional ability to be able to deploy Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW as a SaaS solution and secure any possible traffic flows in their vWAN deployment.

The different traffic flows that are supported by a customer’s vWAN deployment are illustrated below. Flows are numbered in the table below with the following assumptions:

‘B’ stands for a Branch which is a customer’s on-premises network connected to Azure through ExpressRoute circuits, Branch/Site-to-site VPN, or Remote user/Point-to-site connections.
‘V’ stands for VNet—Azure Virtual networks hosting customer services and connected to a Virtual WAN hub. It may also be referred to as spoke VNet.
‘I’ stands for internet, which means the customer traffic that originates from or terminates in the internet and traverses through Azure Virtual WAN.
‘H’ stands for Azure Virtual hub.
Traffic flows across a single hub are traffic flows originating and terminating on endpoints connected to the same virtual hub. These may also be referred to as Intra-hub flows.
Inter-hub flows are traffic flows that traverse across 2 virtual hubs to get to the destination.

Figure 1: Supported use case and traffic flows in Azure Virtual WAN with Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.

User experience

Customers can add Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW to an Azure Virtual WAN Hub in the Azure portal. After a hub is created, click on the hub name and navigate to Third-party Providers -> SaaS solutions –> Create SaaS and choose the Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW option.

Figure 2: Discover Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.

After clicking “Create”, you’ll be taken to a wizard experience where you can configure and customize your Cloud NGFW SaaS deployment. You can customize key networking and security attributes of your SaaS such as selecting public Ips, DNS proxy settings, security policies, and security settings.

Figure 3: Create and set up security settings in Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.

After the Cloud NGFW has been successfully provisioned, you can manage your SaaS Firewall by navigating to your Virtual Hub -> Third-party providers -> SaaS solutions -> Manage SaaS. Explore here for more information on available options.

How does this all work within Virtual WAN

As mentioned in the prior section, Virtual WAN supports multiple flows. To illustrate the behind-the-scenes workings in Virtual WAN, we will use East-West (V2V) traffic flows.

Figure 4: Traffic flows within Virtual WAN for East-West (V2V) traffic to-fro Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.

As you can see, the complexities of traffic engineering, and infrastructure management are completely removed and the user gets to just focus on securing the right security policies for their network traffic.

Key highlights of the Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure integration with Virtual WAN

Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure integrates with Azure Virtual WAN deployments, enabling customers to protect traffic across their entire network. While there are several cool and turn-key features built into the integration, a few that are worth calling out are below:

Machine learning powered NGFW: Cloud NGFW for Azure uses AI and machine learning to detect and stop known, unknown, and zero-day threats, enabling customers to stay ahead of sophisticated adversaries.
Consistent Security and Management from On-Premises to Azure: Cloud NGFW for Azure is integrated with Panorama, Palo Alto Networks policy management solution. The integration of Panorama with Cloud NGFW for Azure offers a host of benefits to customers. Firstly, it enables seamless security policy extension from on-prem to Azure, simplifying operations and reducing administrative workload and total cost of ownership. More importantly, this integration enforces the same high standards of security in the cloud, ensuring that customers’ cloud environments are secure and protected against cyber threats. Additionally, the integration provides centralized visibility, providing valuable insights into the threats on their network enabling customers to manage their security policies through their existing Panorama console, streamlining management, allowing their cloud teams to focus on application migration and new application development.
Ease of use: Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW is designed to be incredibly easy to use. Similar to Virtual WAN product principles for simplicity and ease of use, this Palo Alto Networks integrated solution allows customers to procure and deploy the solution directly from the Azure portal in just a few minutes, providing instant protection against cyber threats. The solution is also painless to operate as Palo Alto Networks takes care of scaling, resilience, and software updates. This integration gives customers the agility and flexibility they need to manage their cloud security while focusing on their core business objectives.

We want your feedback

We look forward to continuing to build out Azure Virtual WAN and adding more capabilities in the future. We encourage you to try out Azure Virtual WAN and the Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW SaaS and look forward to hearing more about your experiences to incorporate your feedback into the product.

Learn more

For additional information, please explore these resources:

Get started with Azure Virtual WAN Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.
What's new in Azure Virtual WAN?
Virtual WAN Palo Alto Networks Solution.
Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW documentation.
Virtual WAN documentation.
Read the Azure Blog announcement.

Quelle: Azure