01 серпня 2023 р.
Firewall (FWaaS)
Unlike the software firewall that many are used to installing on their computers, "firewall as a service" provides protection for several IT infrastructures of customers at the same time. However, this is not the only difference between FWaaS and standard hardware and software solutions.
A standard firewall (also known as a firewall or firewall), such as Windows Defender, only protects the device it's installed on against threats from your local network or the Internet. Such a firewall provides basic traffic filtering, warning the user about potential threats.
"Firewall as a Service" or Firewall as a Service, is located at the provider and consists of a cluster of fail-safe hardware firewalls, the resources of which are provided in the service model. FWaaS also provides a security check and serves as a barrier between the entire customer IT infrastructure and related systems and networks.
How FWaaS works
Firewalls can be conventionally divided into two types.
A software firewall is specialized software that is installed on physical or virtual devices to intercept potential threats and control incoming and outgoing traffic. Examples are Windows Firewall (Microsoft Defender) and iptables in Linux. This software can be installed on a computer or server that acts as a software router.
Advantages of software firewalls include lower cost than hardware firewalls, the ability to protect individual segments of local networks and networks from the inside, and the ability to deploy firewalls on existing servers and user computers. Disadvantages include limited bandwidth compared to hardware solutions and, in some cases, complex setup.
A hardware firewall is hardware controlled by specialized software and consisting of components designed specifically to perform a primary task: traffic processing. Each hardware firewall protects only the physical or virtual IT infrastructure connected to it.
Popular firewalls include solutions from Cisco ASA, FortiGate, Checkpoint, SonicWALL, and WatchGuard. They, like other hardware firewalls, offer greater efficiency compared to software solutions, high performance, reliability and ease of connection and use. The only drawback of these solutions is their high cost, which makes their use for individual protection irrational.
A firewall in the form of physical equipment always includes a management system, but at the same time remains a hardware implementation. A firewall offered on a "as a service" basis can also be considered a hardware solution. The basis of its work is the equipment that allows you to create virtual domains - each of them serves a specific client and guarantees the maximum separation of loads from different clients from each other. A similar principle is used in virtualization, where the hypervisor ensures the isolation of virtual machines.
In reality, by choosing the "firewall as a service" service, you get a reliable and productive hardware solution to protect any IT infrastructure: cloud, physical or hybrid. Expensive hardware firewalls become more affordable thanks to this service model, where one productive device is used to protect multiple customer IT infrastructures. The same principle underlies the popular economic model of resource sharing, where shared valuable resources become available for collective use.
Methods of protection with the help of new generation firewalls
Today, providers use next-generation firewalls - NGFW (Next Generation FireWall) - to combat network threats. These are autonomous devices that perform traffic routing and can serve multiple client loads after dividing into virtual domains (instances). The provider determines the exact number of virtual instances per NGFW device based on its performance and the number of network ports. The customer then orders as many instances as needed to effectively protect their IT infrastructure from unwanted traffic.
Popular among NGFW devices are Fortinet FortiGate firewalls, which form the basis of Firewall as a Service on the Colobridge platform. These are hardware and software complexes with a large number of network ports and support for clustering. In each such complex, there are several network processors for processing network traffic and several more content processors for performing security functions. Fortinet FortiGate devices run on the proprietary FortiOS operating system and include proprietary software, including antivirus with regularly updated databases.
Information protection with FWaaS from OneCloudPlanet
Blocking unauthorized inbound and outbound network traffic – Firewall (FWaaS) from OneCloudPlanet is fault-tolerant, efficient and transparent due to the fact that:
- Rule-based packet filtering is an efficient and transparent method used in our firewall. We support TCP, UDP and ICMP protocols;
- Our firewall is designed with high availability requirements in mind, so equipment, network channels, and power sources are all duplicated;
- Our firewall monitors TCP handshakes and drops all packets not associated with properly established TCP sessions.
Key aspects of understanding FWaaS
By choosing the "firewall as a service" service, you get reliable access to your IT infrastructure and have the opportunity to organize different models of access to its resources. It is a practical and cost-effective tool for comprehensive protection against many types of threats: viruses, targeted cyber-attacks and advanced persistent threats, including the latest - thanks to regularly updated virus databases on the NGFW device.
Features of FWaaS:
- Protection against unwanted traffic at the inter-network level;
- Reducing the space for hacker attacks;
- Monitoring the use of programs;
- Web content filtering;
- Remote access protection;
- Prioritization of network traffic;
- Blocking unwanted traffic sources;
- Protection of web applications;
- Preventing data leakage.
Користувачі, які вибирають FWaaS на додаток до хмарного чи фізичного розміщення своєї IT-інфраструктури, отримують просунутий захист мережевого трафіку в режимі реального часу, гарантовану відсутність єдиного вузького місця в системі безпеки та можливість прогнозувати витрати на протидію мережним загрозам.
Hence
The OneCloudPlanet team advises using "firewall as a service" to secure virtual machines in the cloud, private and hybrid cloud systems, dedicated servers - any kind of corporate IT infrastructure, as well as to protect all kinds of business applications. We will help you choose the most suitable solution that will meet the four main criteria: efficiency, productivity, security and cost.