News
Zscaler Introduces World’s First Cloud-Based Next Generation Firewall with Zscaler Winter 2015
April 2015 by Marc Jacob
Zscaler, the Internet security company, introduced the Winter
2015 release of the Zscaler Internet security platform. With Winter 2015, Zscaler is delivering the world’s
first cloud-based next-generation firewall, providing powerful network security, application control and
visibility everywhere, with no on-premise hardware or software required.
Zscaler Winter 2015 is designed to protect organizations from an increasingly sophisticated threat
landscape. As a fully integrated, carrier-grade, cloud-based Internet security platform, Zscaler Winter
2015 delivers robust Internet security, Advanced Persistent Threat protection, next-generation firewall,
data loss prevention, SSL decryption, traffic shaping, policy management, security assessment and threat
intelligence. Organizations can add new security features with the click of a button without the need to
install or upgrade hardware.
Zscaler Next Generation Firewall
Firewalls have traditionally been delivered as centralized hardware appliance or software-based solutions.
This approach to security made sense years ago, when 90 percent of employees were centrally located and
most software applications ran in centralized corporate data centers. Today, users and applications are
everywhere—centralized, hardware-based security appliances no longer provide complete coverage for a
distributed, Internet, cloud and mobile-first world.
According to Gartner, 70 percent of enterprise firewall purchases are next-generation firewalls. However,
according to Osterman Research, nearly two-thirds of next-generation firewall deployments today are
only in the data center. Taken together, these two facts define the target market for Zscaler’s cloud-based
next-generation firewall—to secure the distributed enterprise outside of the corporate data center, where it
is too expensive and too cumbersome to manage traditional appliance-based next-generation firewalls, to
protect branch offices, retail outlets, manufacturing facilities and other remote and distributed locations—
protecting all employees, devices and Internet-connected things.
GMH Systems, an IT consultancy and managed security services provider based in Germany, has
deployed the Zscaler Next Generation Firewall to provide cloud-based security for its customers.
Features of the Zscaler Next Generation Firewall include:
• Application awareness: Identifies applications regardless of port, protocol, evasive tactic or SSL
• User awareness: Identifies users, groups and locations regardless of IP address
• Threat protection and compliance: Blocks threats and data leaks in real time
• Visibility and policy management: Provides globally unified administration, policy management
and reporting
• Very high performance and scalability: In-line deployment at cloud scale
• Part of an integrated security platform: Integrates with sandboxing, web security, DLP, content
filtering, SSL inspection, malware protection and cloud-scale correlation, reporting and analytics
