Palo Alto Networks announced the release of its next-generation firewall, the PA-7050.
With next-generation firewall functions, such as full application enablement, IPS, AV and WildFire active on all traffic, the PA-7050 is expected to deliver consistent performance at speeds much higher than previous offerings. By doing this, Palo Alto said that it will enable organizations to apply next-generation firewall security throughout networks – from the edge of the enterprise to the data centre. Essentially what Palo Alto is saying with the release of the PA-7050 is that security will not become a barrier to achieving high network performance.
According to the company, the amount of data travelling across enterprise networks continues to grow at a rapid rate, and enterprises need to ensure that data moves as quickly as possible to maintain business productivity. This challenge is compounded by the need to apply next-generation security throughout the network to protect against sophisticated cyber-attacks. These attacks can hide in plain sight, using common applications to penetrate exterior defenses, and once inside a network, act like day-to-day traffic while stealing targeted data via applications such as FTP, webmail or veiled within SSL.
Adding to the challenge are common port-based firewalls, plus simple signature-based protection mechanisms masked as next-generation firewalls cannot safely enable applications; they only block them, and further cannot deliver adequate performance with these security features enabled. The result: many organizations limit application of tight security controls, leaving their organizations at risk, the company claims.
Palo Alto addressed this challenge with the PA-7050, which can extend and manage next-generation firewall and is designed from the ground up to deliver performance consistency with next-generation security controls enabled.
Lee Klarich, senior vice president, product management for Palo Alto Networks said, the PA-7050 allows security teams to achieve two seemingly conflicting goals. First, it provides state-of-the-art security at the application level and applies scans for attacks, malware, and exploits. Second, because it has a unique single-pass architecture designed to optimize performance, the PA-7050 can provide all of this security capability at speeds much greater than alternatives in the market; this ensures business processes run smoothly and securely for our customers.