Azure Digital WAN introduces its first SaaS providing

In the present day 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 inbuilt, vWAN is a one-stop store to attach, defend, route visitors, and monitor your broad 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 allows a buyer to deploy an answer by merely supplying needed parameters and abstracting themselves from the administration of community digital home equipment.

On this weblog, we’ll concentrate on 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.

Table of Contents

The use case

Clients of Azure Digital WAN can now use Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW for Azure to safe their visitors by way of their Digital WAN deployments. In the present day, 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 skill to have the ability to deploy Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW as a SaaS resolution and safe any doable visitors flows of their vWAN deployment.

The completely different visitors flows which might be supported by a buyer’s vWAN deployment are illustrated beneath. Flows are numbered within the desk beneath with the next assumptions:

‘B’ stands for a Department which is a buyer’s on-premises community related to Azure by way of ExpressRoute circuits, Department/Web site-to-site VPN, or Distant person/Level-to-site connections.
‘V’ stands for VNet—Azure Digital networks internet hosting buyer companies and related to a Digital WAN hub. It could 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 by way of Azure Digital WAN.
‘H’ stands for Azure Digital hub.
Site visitors flows throughout a single hub are visitors flows originating and terminating on endpoints related to the identical digital hub. These may be known as Intra-hub flows.
Inter-hub flows are visitors flows that traverse throughout 2 digital hubs to get to the vacation spot.

Determine 1: Supported use case and visitors flows in Azure Digital WAN with Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.

Consumer 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.

Discover Palo Alto Cloud NGFW by navigating to your Virtual Hub and selecting SaaS solutions under Third party providers. Select Create SaaS to begin deploying Cloud NGFW. — Determine 2: Uncover Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.

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

Creating and setting up security and networking settings for Cloud NGFW. Configurable Networking options include creating or specifying Public IP addresses assigned to the Cloud NGFW. — Determine 3: Create and arrange safety settings in Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.

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. Explore here for extra info 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. For example the behind-the-scenes workings in Digital WAN, we’ll use East-West (V2V) visitors flows.

Traffic flows within Virtual WAN for East-West (Virtual Network) traffic inspected by Palo Alto Cloud NGFW. Azure software-defined networking platform uses elastic-NIC to route packets between the Virtual WAN hub and Firewall service VM’s in the Palo Alto subscription. — Determine 4: Site visitors flows inside Digital WAN for East-West (V2V) visitors to-fro Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW.

As you may see, the complexities of visitors engineering, and infrastructure administration are fully eliminated and the person will get to simply concentrate on securing the fitting 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 complete community. Whereas there are a number of cool and turn-key options constructed into the mixing, just a few which might be value calling out are beneath:

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 clients to remain forward of refined adversaries.
Constant Safety and Administration from On-Premises to Azure: Cloud NGFW for Azure is built-in with Panorama, Palo Alto Networks coverage administration resolution. The mixing of Panorama with Cloud NGFW for Azure gives a bunch of advantages to clients. Firstly, it allows seamless safety coverage extension from on-prem to Azure, simplifying operations and decreasing 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 towards cyber threats. Moreover, the mixing gives centralized visibility, offering worthwhile insights into the threats on their community enabling clients to handle their safety insurance policies by way of their present Panorama console, streamlining administration, permitting their cloud groups to concentrate on software migration and new software growth.
Ease of use: Palo Alto Networks Cloud NGFW is designed to be extremely simple to make use of. Much like Digital WAN product ideas for simplicity and ease of use, this Palo Alto Networks built-in resolution permits clients to obtain and deploy the answer instantly from the Azure portal in just some minutes, offering on the spot safety towards cyber threats. The answer can also be painless to function as Palo Alto Networks takes care of scaling, resilience, and software program updates. This integration provides clients the agility and suppleness they should handle their cloud safety whereas specializing in their core enterprise goals.

We wish 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.