Next-generation firewall for application visibility and policy control

Palo Alto Networks today announced immediate availability of its PA-4000 Series, a next-generation firewall that gives organizations unmatched visibility into, and policy control over, applications flowing in and out of their networks. The PA-4000 Series is based on patent-pending traffic classification technology which enables the accurate identification of hundreds of applications that pass undetected though traditional firewalls. Organizations that deploy this technology can benefit from improved policy compliance, enhanced threat mitigation and lower operational costs. 

The PA-4000 Series offers an ability to detect more than 400 applications and protocols at its initial release. It also includes a rich networking foundation and a familiar GUI-based policy management editor. Deployed as a complement to existing firewalls or as an eventual replacement for them, strengths of the PA-4000 Series include:
 
” Accuracy: In-line deployment and App-ID classification identifies all application traffic, across all ports, all the time – including SSL-encrypted traffic and emerging Web-centric applications. 
” Policy: Unified, graphical visualization of all applications on the network delivers centralized policy definition and enforcement based on detailed user, group and application-level categories. This enables better management of approved applications while providing real-time prevention of malicious threats and application vulnerabilities.
” Performance: A purpose-built, high performance network platform with dedicated processing for all major functions provides total control of good and bad traffic with up to 10 Gbps throughput, ensuring no performance degradation.
  
The PA-4000 Series currently comprises the PA-4050 and PA-4020 platforms. The PA-4050 supports up to 10 Gbps throughput and lists at US$60,000, and the PA-4020 supports up to 2 Gbps throughput and lists at US$35,000. Both models are available immediately.
 
Palo Alto Networks was founded by security industry visionary Nir Zuk, one of the creators of the stateful inspection technology upon which today’s multibillion dollar firewall industry is based.