A firewall is a network device between the outside world and your internal network, that prevents unwanted traffic from getting in. At least, this used to be the main function of firewalls. Today, there are highly-advanced “next generation” firewalls that provide tremendous insight into your network, as all traffic coming and going must pass through it. Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of a “next-gen” firewall over a traditional firewall.
Traditional firewalls, simply speaking, look at the type of traffic, and its sender/destination to determine whether or not the traffic is allowed. Some may also include systems that detect when an intrusion may be happening or have happened, and can generate alerts or lock down traffic as a result. However, these firewalls provide little insight in terms of internet content, application usage, bandwidth usage, etc.
Next generation firewalls provide a myriad of benefits over traditional firewalls. Of course, next-gen firewalls include all the same functionality of traditional firewalls, but it is the extra features and functionality that make them well worth considering for any business.
Next-gen firewalls allow control on the application level, while traditional firewalls cannot. This means that your IT team can prioritize traffic for specific applications that are sensitive to network conditions (e.g., Skype video conferencing for interviews or VoIP phone traffic), while blocking other applications entirely (e.g. peer-to-peer file sharing or Netflix).
Content filtering is possible through a next-gen firewall, eliminating the need for a third-party service to filter content. Commonly blocked categories such as pornography or gambling are obvious, but this can be tailored to each business’ needs, to where internet access can be easily restricted to business-related sites only, or trouble sites can be blocked on a site-by-site basis, rather than an entire category.
Client-level monitoring is also a great feature of next-gen firewalls. Each client that connects to the firewall can be analyzed to determine network and application usage, as well as browsing history. It’s easy for a few employees to slow down an entire network by streaming HD video all day; a next-gen firewall provides technicians with tools to easily identify problem users, or just network problems in general.
Intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) are not exclusive to next-gen firewalls; however, much like an anti-virus program, IDPS rely on signatures of previously-detected threats to determine when behavior or traffic on a network is suspect. A next-gen firewall offers more robust IDPS that is automatically kept up-to-date, to better protect your network against the latest threats. Next-gen firewalls can also offer virus and malware detection to protect individual computers, in addition to the network as a whole.
At Layered Systems, we specialize in utilizing next-gen firewalls to provide robust protection and network management. This allows us to have up-to-the-minute insight into the health of your network, identifying and fixing potential issues before employees are aware anything is wrong. Next-gen firewalls can also provide easily-readable reports on network health, internet usage, and more. Contact us today to talk about your company’s network security, and the benefits a next-gen firewall can provide.
