Barracuda Networks adds analytics to firewall with SDWAN capabilities

Barracuda Networks has added analytics to its next-generation firewall, which also includes SD-WAN capabilities. The new platform for security analytics, Firewall Insights, collects and analyzes information from all CloudGen Firewalls that are deployed in an organization’s network. These deployments can be hardware, virtual or cloud-based.

“This could be hundreds or thousands of locations,” says Mike Goldgof, senior director of product marketing at Barracuda Networks, opposite SDX Central. The platform provides insights into, for example, dynamic availability information on SD WAN connections, transport data, security and details of web and network traffic.

In addition, the platform includes automation capabilities for tasks such as scheduling, collecting, consolidating and analyzing data produced by firewall appliances. Users can customize reports that can contain all or only part of the deployed firewalls.

The platform also expands the capabilities of Barracuda Networks (hereinafter Barracuda) when it comes to securing SDWAN. The company’s CloudGen Firewall, launched in 2017, offers connectivity via the WANs and to the cloud as well as next-generation firewall capabilities. According to Goldgof, this product has always been advanced when it comes to connecting distributed enterprise locations. But with a growing number of security companies adding some form of SD WAN features to their appliances, Goldgof says Barracuda is “one of the first to have secure SD WAN capabilities”.

Use cases

Barracuda sees three important use cases for his new product. First of all, there is the distributed enterprise, of which SD-WAN is a part. There is also cloud migration, and IoT deployment. According to Goldgof, IOT expansion joints are also an important growth area for Barracuda and the platform.

“Industrial IoT is a very exciting area, because you have large enterprises that are concerned not only about IT infrastructure, but also about operational technology. More and more of their factory floor and industrial endpoints are now connected. And when they’re connected, they need the same kind of information and level of security.”