Posted by: Kaivan Jesung, product manager
I am pleased to announce the integration of two of our leading solutions, the Barracuda NG Firewall and Barracuda Web Security Flex.
The Barracuda NG Firewall extends the traditional Firewall concept by adding Layer 7 application control, user identity, IDS/IPS, WAN optimization and network access control enforcement. Many customers also want Web content security in the mix for a unified security posture at the network gateway. The traditional approach has been to provide all this functionality in a “box” relying on network accelerators and ASICs to meet performance demands. While this may simplify things on the surface, Web content filtering and reporting are compute heavy operations that could adversely impact the performance of the Firewall.
Barracuda Networks has the perfect solution for this with Barracuda Web Security Flex, a cloud-based Web filtering and security service that provides policy and enforcement tools to protect users from Internet threats. By integrating the Barracuda NG Firewall with Barracuda Web Security Flex, customers get the best of both worlds. They can use lightweight on-premises hardware for core network security functions and leverage the cloud for more resource intensive Web content security functions. This ensures up-to-date security against the latest threats while optimizing the on-premises footprint and upgrade cycles required.
With this, organizations can:
· Simplify capacity planning – Organizations are not so rigidly bound to the compute cycles available on the on-premises firewall as the cloud will automatically scale-up or scale-down depending on the number of users that need to be filtered without impacting on-premises infrastructure.
· Maximize security across all locations – Organizations can right-size their on-premises firewalls while still providing advanced malware scanning, content filtering and centralized reporting to branch office locations.
· Extend Web Security to off-network machines – The Barracuda Web Security Agent is now available to Barracuda NG Firewall customers, extending Web filtering to remote off-network machines. Barracuda Networks is the first and only next-generation firewall vendor to provide comprehensive Web security and policy enforcement to remote users, regardless of location or device.
· Centralize Policy Management – Barracuda Web Security Flex provides a simple cloud-based policy management interface that is seamlessly integrated with the Barracuda NG Control Center. This provides centralized management of Firewall rules and Web usage policies across multiple locations.
This integrated solution is the first of its kind that enables enterprises to provide maximum protection both on-and-off network, while offloading security and reporting functions to the cloud. A number of our customers are benefiting from this unique approach and I am very excited by the traction we are seeing. Learn more about the Barracuda NG Firewall at http://www.barracuda.com/ng and Barracuda Web Security Flex at http://www.barracuda.com/flex or contact one of our product specialists at +1 408 342 5400.
