SonicWall Next Generation Firewall Buyer’s Guide
November 11, 2020 – SonicWall®
This guide examines various criteria for selecting the perfect next-generation firewall, such as specific management features, platform capabilities, performance, and more. With cyber threats of all types on the rise, the risks to businesses and individuals alike are reaching unprecedented levels. And protecting against these attacks is becoming increasingly challenging, as companies need to cover multiple attack surfaces and implement the latest security controls just to keep up.
Cybercrime looks nothing like it did two decades ago. Fortunately, neither do firewalls: Today’s next-generation firewalls feature a host of new security controls, significantly higher performance, and a great variety of form factors.
Next-generation firewalls have expanded capability in the full range of areas that matter most. The concept of Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFW) was first defined by Gartner, publisher of the ‘Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls.’ NGFWs have the option to add all the security controls that are available in Unified Threat Management (UTM), as well as advanced controls such as VPN, user control, application control, and sandboxing. Apart from advanced security controls, NGFWs are designed to support large enterprises’ high performance and scalability needs. The rest of this document will focus on NGFWs and different factors that enterprises should consider in their buying decision.
Among the essential NGFW capabilities identified in this document:
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ZONE-BASED FIREWALL (ZBF) -
VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK (VPN)
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INTRUSION PREVENTION SYSTEM
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APPLICATION CONTROL
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WEB CONTROL (URL FILTERING)
There are other essential security features to consider when evaluating a Next-Generation Firewall, among them:
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NETWORK AND CLOUD SANDBOXING
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MULTI-INSTANCE FIREWALL
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DEDICATED THREAT INTELLIGENCE
This 12-page report examines all the critical facets in cybersecurity that have made Next-Generation Firewalls a matter of necessity. It includes a side-by-side comparison of five of the most well-known builders of firewalls.
Today’s firewalls are more agile, more capable, and more potent than when the technology debuted 20 years ago. Security defenses have evolved — particularly firewalls — increasing IT management teams’ capabilities to keep their assets and networks safe.
