Palo Alto, VMware to offer next-generation firewall as-a-service capabilities on cloud

Palo Alto Networks has released its virtual firewall series (VM-Series) whichgives organisations the ability to realise the agility and flexibility promises of cloud; to detect and prevent known and unknown cyber threats before they compromise their VDCs; and to choose the public, private or hybrid deployment architecture without compromising security.

The companyalso is working with VMware to extend the companies’ integrated security and network virtualisation capabilities to hybrid cloud environments, enabling customers to apply the same security policies across their private and public infrastructure with a consistent approach to security whether the application is virtual, physical, on-premise or off-premise.

Palo Alto and VMware are delivering a solution that includes the Palo Alto Networks VM-1000-HV designed specifically for VMware NSX interoperability. Customers also can deploy the Palo Alto VM-series with their instances ofVMware vCloud Air, an enterprise-grade public cloud service.

In 2015, Palo Alto Networks and VMware expect to deliver new multi-tenant next-generation firewall as-a-service capabilities in VMware vCloud Air based on the Palo Alto Networks VM-1000-HV integration with VMware NSX.

“VMware and Palo Alto Networks are delivering on the vision of hybrid cloud, which is to design applications once, secure once, and deploy anywhere without compromise. Through our partnership, we are combining best-in-class security with the software-defined data center architecture to meet customers’ business requirements for improved security and advanced threat protection,“Scott Collison, Vice President, Common Platforms, vCloud Air, VMware.

The new release of the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series also gives organisations the flexibility to maintain next-generation security across a number of cloud service providers with support for cloud infrastructure providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), and support for Kernel-based Virtual machine (KVM), a popular open source hypervisor used in public cloud computing environments.

The latest release of the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is expected to be available by the end of October including support for AWS and KVM.