Palo Alto Networks today extended its leadership in security services for private, hybrid and public cloud with the latest release of its virtual firewall series (VM-Series).  

Enterprises are keen to take advantage of the agility, scalability and cost benefits of cloud-based virtual data centers (VDCs) by building their own private cloud, purchasing public cloud services from providers, or adopting a hybrid cloud approach. Most enterprises are ultimately aiming for the portability of both the application and security policies, regardless of where the application is deployed.

However, when it comes to security, most public cloud environments are based on inconsistent network architectures common in traditional data centers and still rely on legacy security technologies – such as stateful inspection and port-based firewalls – that aren't capable of securing public cloud or hosted VDCs against sophisticated cyber threats.

The latest Palo Alto Networks VM-Series release gives organizations the ability to realize the full 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.

Palo Alto Networks also is working with VMware to extend the companies' unique, integrated security and network virtualization capabilities to hybrid cloud environments, enabling customers to apply the same rich 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. Today, Palo Alto Networks 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 Networks VM-series with their instances of VMware 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 latest release of our VM-Series was specifically designed with the cloud in mind.  It provides consistent automated protection for cloud computing environments so organizations can take advantage of the productivity and cost benefits provided by the cloud without compromising security.  It delivers the freedom to deploy new applications and virtual machines and remain confident their VDCs are protected by next-generation firewall and threat prevention technology." -- Lee Klarich, senior vice president of Product Management, Palo Alto Networks

The new release of the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series also gives organizations 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.

Availability

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.  Palo Alto Networks customers with active maintenance agreements can obtain the software by accessing the support portal. The Palo Alto Networks VM-1000-HV is expected to be available in vCloud Air in the first half of calendar year 2015.

For more information about the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, please visit: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/products/platforms/virtualized-firewalls/vm-series/overview.html.