Next generation Security and Threat defense for the Multi-Cloud Networks.
Overview
Cisco and Alkira combine to deliver a joint solution that increases security for the multi-cloud era and makes deploying industry-leading Cisco virtual firewall solutions fast, easy, and secure. Alkira Cloud Area Networking empowers enterprise IT leaders to adopt agile networking and easily solve even the most complex security challenges in the cloud era. In close partnership with Cisco, Alkira Cloud Area Networking now offers deployment of Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual as an integrated security offering in the Alkira multi-cloud platform. Organizations benefit from automated deployment of Cisco virtualized security solutions, saving time, resources, and enabling increased agility for addressing multi-cloud security threats.
Benefits
Integrate Network and Security Architecture
Intelligent integration of firewall services into the global cloud network.
Unified Security Posture
Uniformly enforce firewall security policies across on-premises, cloud, and multi-cloud environments.
Automated Scaling Capabilities
Automatically scale up and down firewall resources based on real-time demand
Increased Application Visibility
Symmetrically steer application traffic and eliminate IP address obfuscation, delivering new levels of insight into workloads.
Simplified Operations
Alkira reinvents networking for the cloud era, with an intuitive graphical interface for all network provisioning, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
Solution
The joint solution provisions Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (formerly FTD) firewalls in the Alkira Cloud Exchange Points (Alkira CXPs). Alkira CXPs are virtual multi-cloud points of presence with full routing and network services capabilities. Alkira CXPs are distributed across the globe leveraging the hyperscale public cloud infrastructure. Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense hosted within the Alkira Cloud Exchange Points can be used to secure a variety of use cases:
Alkira Cloud Area Networking Services Marketplace allows enterprises to instantly instantiate Cisco Secure Threat Defense firewall instances and seamlessly integrate into the global Alkira routed network fabric. The joint solution provides the following elements:
● Automated provisioning and lifecycle management of Cisco virtual firewalls
● Transparent, policy based insertion of Cisco firewalls
● Network segmentation and micro-segmentation with firewall services
● Auto-Scaling of Cisco Threat Defense instances based on real time demand
How it works?
Provisioning the firewalls in the Alkira CXPs involves following the intuitive process in the Alkira portal where the administrator:
- Provides the IP address of the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center (FMC)
- Chooses from the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) or Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL) licensing model
- Selects auto-scaling high and low water marks
- Assigns the proper security zones to be created on the firewalls for the zone-based security policy
Once provisioned, the joint solution seamlessly orchestrates connectivity between the Cisco firewalls and the FMC management, so firewall policy can be deployed.
Alkira Cloud Area Networking brings Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense to the Alkira Network Services Marketplace. This addition allows enterprises to dramatically simplify and expedite their cloud and multi-cloud networking journey, while securing it with Cisco’s rich firewall feature set. The entire integrated solution is consumed as a service, eliminating hardware proliferation, complex software configuration, and the need to learn cloud architectures.
