SAN FRANCISCO – RSA CONFERENCE 2016 – Barracuda Networks announced on Wednesday the launch of a new NextGen Firewall product designed to allow organizations to securely connect a large number of endpoints.
The Barracuda NextGen Firewall S-Series is advertised as a solution that is ideal for organizations seeking to centrally manage highly distributed and hybrid networks, such as ATMs or remote offices.
The Barracuda NextGen Firewall S-Series, whose use requires a Barracuda NextGen Control Center, has two main components: Secure Connector 1 (SC1), an appliance that provides Wi-Fi, VPN and firewall services; and Secure Access Concentrator (SAC), a virtual gateway that optimizes traffic flow and applies NGFW functionality to SC1 appliances. The SAC is designed to run in both private clouds and Microsoft azure environments.
The list of features provided by the Barracuda NextGen Firewall S-Series includes access privilege enforcement, and secure and central communications management, along with the security capabilities of other Barracuda firewall products, such as application control, antivirus, URL filtering, and intrusion prevention systems (IPS).
According to the vendor, the product can be quickly deployed even by untrained staff using a configuration file created by the organization’s central IT team. The firewall product’s Automatic Network Setup feature allows administrators to easily define networks and subnetworks and automatically assign them to SC1 appliances.
The Barracuda NextGen Firewall S-Series is available immediately with list prices starting at $299 for the SC1 appliance and $999 for the SAC virtual appliance. Customers will have to separately acquire yearly Energize Updates for $49, respectively $179. The product’s international availability and pricing vary by region.
“Next-generation firewall appliances typically deployed in smaller networks can be very complex and expensive for organizations with hundreds or even thousands of remote kiosks, such as banks with ATMs and energy providers with wind power stations,” explained Klaus Gheri, VP of Network Security at Barracuda. “The Barracuda NextGen Firewall S-Series empowers customers to massively scale thousands of connected devices with powerful technology that is easy to use and affordable.”