Network-based Firewall

It is a fully managed firewall service that helps protect your network by providing highly secure inbound and outbound internet access through security gateways. Rather than having the firewall reside in a traditional on-premises solution, network-based firewalls are deployed in the service provider’s cloud infrastructure. 

It could range from a bad experience with their existing firewalls, an attack or some security event that left them exposed to a financial or legal risk, or shortage of on-staff professionals, which makes it hard to handle the growth of firewall threats like malware or botnets and to keep firewall devices and policies updated. Another big factor is that customers want to their security solutions to evolve and add new functionality, such as application control, but their firewall devices aren’t equipped to handle it. In this situation, there may be no way to introduce that new functionality into their on-premise security infrastructure without making a large capital investment. 

Upfront capitals costs for equipment and on-going software and hardware maintenance fees can drive up the costs of deploying or expanding onsite firewalls to more users or locations. With network-based firewalls, there’s no need for you to buy or install additional devices onsite, or to invest in a staff to maintain and troubleshoot them around the cloud. You subscribe to a firewall security solution, rather than buy a firewall device. It becomes a predictable operating expense. There can also be a cost savings when it comes to resiliency. Instead of duplicating your own equipment, facilities and network connections to guard against denial of service or other attacks, you can choose a provider that offers a fully redundant infrastructure. 

When customers manage their own firewalls, they must be equipped to track and prepare for the latest security risks and trends. They also need a way to filter out potentially harmful threats from the multitudes that attempt to break into their network everyday. The trouble hits when they can’t do this because they are short-staffed, or because people are on vacation or out sick. But threats don’t wait; there are security cases that need to be worked every day. And it’s not just a matter of dealing with new threats. Many of the oldest, well-known viruses and worms are still very active. We have highly specialized security staff devoted to updating devices and policies and to monitoring, analyzing and managing threats on a 24x7x365 basis – and that’s included in your subscription.

Yes, you can define your security policies to meet your specific needs from both a business and compliance standpoint. We offer the flexibility to configure your firewall service to support your policies and to change policies and configurations as you need to. If you have multiple locations, we can also make it easier to deploy consistent global or region-specific security policies. You can add regional, cloud-based firewall locations without the need for localized security staff or bringing all traffic back to headquarters. 

Your ability to deploy new security features and capabilities with on-premises firewalls is often limited by the staff you have on hand to implement, update and support them, as well as capital constraints. With our network-based firewalls, you can “turn on” the features you need with the speed and efficiency of any cloud service. So, it’s much easier to add the security solutions you need – like intrusion detection, malware scanning, web filtering or application controls. This means you can increase protection more quickly, which is important since the threat landscape is always changing. 

We offer managed firewall services that are network-based, but we also offer a premises-based firewall service. We can help you design a hybrid solution that utilizes both your existing on-site devices and solutions and our managed security services. Because when it comes to protecting your business, it’s not just a decision about firewalls, it’s a decision about how firewalls fit into your overall security strategy.