The COVID-19 pandemic has forced organizations to press remote worker programs into action, often with hard lessons learned along the way. All organizations in today’s world must be able to adapt to changing business conditions with little advance notice, and ensure secure remote work is part of a robust business continuity plan.
This is not so easy. Organizations wrestling with a remote workforce are learning the limits of outdated integrated firewall and virtual private network (VPN) solutions when it comes to performance and scalability. Many have already seen firsthand that traditional firewalls simply cannot scale across multiple applications required for secure telework—putting further burden on IT teams to upgrade firewalls or install completely separate appliances to keep pace.
Next-generation firewalls must be able to provide performance and advanced capabilities at an agreeable cost—and with the ability to scale to meet future demands of distributed teams. The pandemic will not be the last time teams are asked to be at their best in a remote-first environment.
Next-generation firewalls play an important role in threat protection and preserving business continuity. Security teams use them to monitor the IT environment and gain complete visibility across networks. These seven considerations covered should guide your evaluation of next-generation firewall performance.