FirstWave to release 'One touch' deployment of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Next-Generation Firewalls for Telco-grade cloud security gateways

FirstWave Cloud Technology’s Australian development team has developed and successfully trialled a software-driven ‘one-touch’ service orchestration and provisioning capability, enabling ‘dynamic bootstrapping’ using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series next-generation firewalls into Telco-grade cloud security gateway infrastructure.  

Traditionally, Telco or Service Provider delivery of hosted enterprise firewall or secure Internet gateway services is based on a variety of different vendors’ multi-tenanted, hardware-based platforms at Telco Data Centres with multiple management systems having the significant drawback of high-touch, labour-intensive, complex service provisioning and configuration processes.  

FirstWave’s innovative release of ‘dynamic bootstrapping’ technology using Palo Alto Networks VM-series next-generation firewalls in its cloud content security gateways (CCSGs) can dramatically speed-up and simplify Telco or Service Provider provisioning of virtualised firewalls for secure enterprise network solutions. The solution architecture is highly flexible and scalable to include deployment of single firewalls or High Availability (HA) firewall pairs and can support customers at any location.   

A key technology component of this solution is FirstWave’s own proprietary management and orchestration (‘MANO’) system. In completed trials, the ‘dynamic bootstrapping’ capability of the MANO was able to automatically ‘spin up’ a fully-configured and operational Palo Alto Networks VM-Series HA (Active/Passive) pair, from a virtual appliance image repository, on VMWare –based Telco cloud infrastructure, in around five (5) minutes after issuing the ‘deploy’ command.   

Additionally, when coupled with APIs into Telco or Service Provider BSS provisioning and billing systems, the FirstWave MANO can enable a ‘zero –touch’ provisioning process such that the complete virtual firewall service could be spun up, configured, licensed and activated in a fully-automated fashion from submission of a service order in a Telco or Service Provider order-to-activate system.  

“Our cloud technology team is always exploring new ways to provide the next level of cloud security innovation for our customers. This is another example of how we can combine the power of Australian innovation and great technology integrations to push the boundaries in what can be achieved for enterprise security”, said Simon Ryan, Chief Technical Officer.