The first cloud-generation firewall

More and more companies all over the world adopt and integrate public cloud offerings into their network. But "before you can work in the cloud, you have to get to cloud" has never been more true than today.

Shifting workloads to cloud based services, regardless if Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) exposed a different set of requirements WAN edge and network security devices today need to address: Optimizing connectivity for business critical applications, enforcing higher security levels than ever and reducing cost by moving away from expensive MPLS lines.

Because traditional WAN edge and security products did not adapt to these new challenges, a new set of solutions enabling cost efficient connectivity across the cloud-enabled WAN has emerged: SD-WAN.

However, SD-WAN typically does not address securityrelated aspects. It is considered more like a connectivity solution that works besides the security solution - at best. Just like different species.

Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is the first to combine full next-generation security with the connectivity optimization and cost savings potentials of a full SD-WAN solution onto one single easy to manage hardware, virtual or cloud based appliance. CloudGen Firewall improves site-to-site connectivity and enable uninterrupted access to applications hosted in the cloud all while simplifying the administration of network operations for enterprises and managed services providers.

CloudGen Firewall achieves this by tightly integrating a comprehensive set of next-generation firewall technologies, including layer 7 application profiling, intrusion prevention, web filtering, advanced threat and malware protection, spam protection, and network access control. Yet on top of these cutting-edge next-generation firewall capabilities, CloudGen Firewall's highly resilient VPN technology combined with intelligent traffic management and WAN compression capabilities allow customers to save line costs and increase overall network availability.

All pieces of the solution are centrally manageable across all platforms and release versions, reducing ongoing administrative overhead and ensuring policy compliance and enforcement across the wide area network.

Benefits at a glance

Consolidated security without compromise: All CloudGen Firewall models and deployment options provide comprehensive next-generation firewalling including application control and user awareness, full mail & web security gateway functionality, malware protection, botnet and spyware detection, typosquatting & link protection, sandboxing (Advanced Threat Protection), URL filter, and file type policy enforcement. All this combined with unbeatable network security and packed into a single, powerful appliance. The tight integration of web security and network security features enables advanced functionalities, such as prioritizing certain application traffic based on user/group info and time information, and allowing certain applications to go out via predefined uplinks only

Cloud ready: The ongoing shift of IT workloads to cloud services in order to increase flexibility and reduce costs requires a reliable, cost-effective extension of the company WAN to the cloud. This applies to headquarters as well as direct Internet breakouts at every branch location. CloudGen Firewall models come fully featured for all common cloud IaaS providers, as virtual appliances, and in a variety of hardware appliances for even small offices. Hybrid WAN and cloud-only networks can thereby also benefit from CloudGen Firewall.