New Features - Cloud NGFW for Azure - December 2024

Cloud NGFW for Azure introduces enhanced pricing structure changes to provide greater flexibility in how you consume and pay for cloud security services. Organizations operating Cloud NGFW face evolving requirements for how they budget and pay for cloud security, with some preferring consumption-based models while others need predictable costs through committed use. With the updated pricing structure, you gain more flexibility in choosing consumption models that align with your business requirements and budget constraints, whether you prefer pay-as-you-go flexibility or committed spend predictability.

This pricing enhancement allows you to optimize costs based on your actual usage patterns while maintaining the security coverage you need. You can now select pricing models that better match your organization's financial planning processes, whether that means variable costs that scale with usage or fixed commitments that provide cost certainty. The updated structure provides transparent billing that helps you understand exactly what you're paying for, enabling more accurate cost forecasting and budget allocation across your Azure security infrastructure.

For more information, see Pricing.

Cloud NGFW on Azure now enables Panorama-managed resources to stream logs to Strata Logging Service with automatic storage scaling to address the challenge of managing log data across hybrid cloud environments. Organizations managing Cloud NGFW resources with Panorama previously faced complexity in centralizing logs and ensuring adequate storage capacity as traffic volumes increased. When managing Cloud NGFW resources with Panorama, you can now stream the logs to Strata Logging Service and use Explore/Log Viewer queries to view logs generated by specific Cloud NGFW for Azure resources, with automatic scaling that adjusts storage capacity as traffic throughput increases so you don't need to worry about making manual adjustments to save your log data.

This integration provides a cloud-native logging solution that eliminates the operational burden of capacity planning and storage management for log data. As your Cloud NGFW processes more traffic, Strata Logging Service automatically provisions additional storage, ensuring continuous log collection without interruption or data loss. You can now perform comprehensive security investigations across your Cloud NGFW deployments using powerful query capabilities without managing on-premises log collectors or worrying about storage exhaustion during traffic spikes.

For more information, see View Traffic and Threat Logs in Strata Logging Service.

The Command Center and Activity Insights pages now include support for Cloud Next-Generation Firewalls and Prisma® Access Browser, enhancing visibility across your network security infrastructure. This integration allows you to view Cloud NGFW and Prisma® Access Browser data alongside existing NGFW and Prisma® Access information, providing you with a more comprehensive picture of your security posture.

In the Command Center, Cloud NGFW data is incorporated into three views: Summary, Threats, and Operational Health. This means you can now monitor traffic, threats, URLs, and other security metrics from your Cloud NGFWs within the familiar Command Center interface.

Prisma® Access Browser visibility is now available in the Summary and Operational Health views of the Command Center, enabling you to review the count of Prisma® Access Browser users on your network. This enhanced visibility provides you with real-time insights into browser-based security activity and user engagement patterns.

The Activity Insights pages also benefit from this integration, allowing you to analyze Cloud NGFW or Prisma® Access Browser specific data alongside other security platforms. You can now correlate security events and trends across your entire infrastructure ecosystem, making it easier to identify patterns and optimize your security configurations based on comprehensive data analysis.