Palo Alto Networks introduced a new artificial intelligence- (AI-) powered, zero-trust-based management tool, dubbed Strata Cloud Manager. The tool is designed to streamline and unify management and visibility for the vendor’s network security and secure access service edge (SASE) offerings.

“Most customers have different tools for SD-WAN, different tools for access. Within access, they have different tools for internet access, private access [and] monitoring and it's just a nightmare,” Anand Oswal, SVP and GM at Palo Alto Networks, told SDxCentral.

With Strata Cloud Manager, “you have a single unified dashboard across SASE but also across hardware firewall and software firewalls, so as they look at the network security in a single pane of glass, they can get complete visibility,” he added.

The cloud-based tool is an upgraded version of Palo Alto Networks’ existing on-premise management tool Panorama. The Strata Cloud Manager extends beyond the capabilities of Panorama by leveraging cloud, AI and zero-trust capabilities.

Palo Alto Networks claims the Strata Cloud Manager offers the following:

  • Predictive analytics that helps organizations anticipate potential network capacity issues with the ability to check the health of their deployments up to a week in advance
  • AI-powered security policy analysis and compliance checks
  • Easy management of security configurations and policies across all form factors of the vendor’s network security products across hardware and cloud firewalls, Prisma Access and Prisma SD-WAN
Strata Cloud Manager ensures zero-trust-based, consistent policy defining

The Strata Cloud Manager also is designed to help organizations apply security policies uniformly across all network security forms, Oswal said. “You can set the policy once and you can apply it across the state.”

“It helps you get to zero trust,” he added. “We talk of zero trust as having no notion of implied trust and having that same consistent policy and consistent experience.”

Oswal highlighted the tool's ability to implement consistent policies that adapt to the user's environment, whether they are in the office, at home, or on the road, accessing applications hosted in various locations across the data center and the cloud.

Palo Alto Networks unveils five new next-gen firewalls for more use cases

Alongside the Strata Cloud Manager, Palo Alto Networks also introduced five new next-generation firewalls, expanding its portfolio to include more use cases such as 5G and operational technology (OT).

  • The PA-7500, powered by custom ASICs, offers over 1.5 Tb/s App-ID performance. “It's the fastest firewall in the world today. So, it will be for large data centers or even service provider environments,” Oswal said.
  • The PA-415-5G is designed to secure organizations’ branch offices for both wired and 5G connectivity.
  • The PA-450R is built to endure harsh conditions, which is suitable for OT environments.
  • The vendor also introduced PA-5445 for data centers and large campus locations, and PA-455 for branch offices with embedded power over ethernet (PoE) capabilities.