PAN-OS 8.0: New Hardware Enables Powerful Security Performance Without Compromise

Three key trends are driving the need for increased performance and capacity requirements on security appliances:

1. Data center consolidation, leading to increased bandwidth requirements.
2. Increasing share of encrypted traffic, which must be secured.
3. Consumption of hybrid cloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications driving north-south traffic growth.

At the same time, organizations are required to rethink how to protect the network from a new, more sophisticated class of advanced threats that evade traditional security mechanisms.

Our latest release, PAN-OS 8.0, introduces new hardware appliances that do a lot better than the usual compromise between performance and applying next-generation security to all traffic, including encrypted traffic. With these new appliances, you can now prevent successful cyberattacks everywhere your data resides – from your largest data centers down to your smallest branches. The new appliances include:

PA-5200 Series

The PA-5200 Series – PA-5260, PA-5250 and PA-5220 – prevent threats and safely enable applications in high-performance network deployments, including Internet Gateway, Data Center, and Service Provider (SP) environments. Secure your network with predictable performance and advanced visibility and control of applications, users and content at  throughput speeds of up to 72 Gbps.

Key Features: High-performance appliances deliver up to 72 Gbps (App-ID) and 30 Gbps (Threat Prevention) High SSL session capacity with up to 32M sessions and 3.2M SSL-decrypt sessions Flexibility in I/O with high-density 10G, 40G and 100G support Front-to-back airflow support

PA-800 Series

The PA-800 Series – PA-850 and PA-820 – is designed to secure enterprise branch offices and retail locations.

Key Features: High-performance appliances up to 1.9 Gbps (App-ID) and 780 Mbps (Threat Prevention) Fast management plane, leveraging multiple CPU cores and 8GB memory Hardware resiliency, leveraging redundant power Flexible I/O for today’s and tomorrow’s network needs with up to 10G interfaces Simplified deployments of large numbers of firewalls through the USB port

PA-220

Built in a compact desktop footprint, the PA-220 brings next-generation firewall capabilities to your smallest branch offices and retail locations.

Key Features: Built-in resiliency with dual power adapters Complete high availability support: active/active and active/passive Passive and silent cooling to eliminate noise and increase reliability Desktop footprint with high port density Simplified deployments of large numbers of firewalls through the USB port

Architected to handle ever-increasing amounts of application-, user- and device-generated data, our next-generation firewalls natively classify all traffic, inclusive of applications, threats and content, and tie the traffic to the user, regardless of location or device type. The applications, content and users are then used as the basis of your security policies to safely enable applications and prevent modern threats, both known and unknown.

With our expanded portfolio of appliances, customers can now address an even wider variety of use cases with different form factors and performance variants to fit diverse deployment needs.

Learn more about our new family of breakthrough performance hardware.

Sai Balabhadrapatruni, Stephanie Johnson and Navneet Singh

[Palo Alto Networks Research Center]