Security and performance are always difficult to balance. The need to secure your network and applications is obvious, but to do so at the expense of performance impedes productivity. If security prevents employee efficiency, your company risks assuming a completely new set of costs. Traditional firewall solutions have done little to help with this situation.
To address this challenge, a new type of firewall is entering the market. Called “next-generation firewalls,” they sweep traffic efficiently for intrusion prevention and maintain an awareness of applications going through it for policy enforcement and identity-based application use. This new approach to firewalls is powerful, dynamic and intelligent, providing a new level of functionality and security without compromising application or network performance.
Long considered something for the future, next-generation firewalls have already come to market, and they’ve had a few years to mature. Palo Alto Networks, for example, is considered to be the first IT equipment manufacturer to move into this space, having come to market in 2007 with its first product. Now, Palo Alto has moved into the industry-leader position, with more than 2,200 customers and a comparatively mature next-generation firewall solution.
