Barracuda NG Firewall extends support for Microsoft centric deployments

Barracuda Networks, Inc. has announced the availability of new capabilities supporting Microsoft deployments in the areas of Windows Remote Desktop Services, virtualisation and public cloud.

“The market shift from the traditional network firewall to the next-generation firewall is happening concurrently with the shift in modern computing environments from traditional desktops and on-premises, dedicated server hardware,” said Klaus Gheri, VP network security at Barracuda. “With the latest Barracuda NG Firewall release, we continue to enable our customers to make the shift to the newer topologies proposed in the Microsoft ecosystem, including Hyper-V virtualisation and Microsoft Azure public cloud infrastructure.”

The latest version of the Barracuda NG Firewall includes capabilities such as:
· Full user awareness for Windows Remote Desktop Services. Barracuda NG Firewall rules can be user aware even when multiple users on a Remote Desktop Server are behind a single IP address. The latest version of Barracuda NG Firewall adds another integration that makes use of a small, lightweight transparent client that simplifies integration and does not rely on external authentication protocols.
· Support for Hyper-V virtualisation. Barracuda NG Firewall Vx virtual appliances can be deployed on Microsoft Hyper-V servers, in addition to VMware.
· Extended support for Microsoft Azure cloud. The latest Barracuda NG Firewall version now supports next-generation firewalling capabilities and high speed (>1 Gbps) site-to-site secure remote access from on-premises networks to Microsoft Azure or Vnets within Microsoft Azure. It enables organisations to deploy securely interconnected multi-zone network architectures. For more information, visit http://cuda.co/ngfw-azure.
Additionally, concurrent with these new capabilities, Barracuda has released other features in the Barracuda NG Firewall version 5.4.3 that continue to support its leading next-generation firewall capabilities, including:
· Application-based dynamic uplink selection. Unlike some firewall platforms that only use their application awareness capabilities to block or allow traffic, the Barracuda NG Firewall application-based dynamic uplink selection provides traffic prioritisation, improved Quality of Service (QoS) and faster performance for accessing services on the Internet.
· New application usage and risk reports. This latest Barracuda NG Firewall version provides new reports that help administrators enforce Internet usage policies and provides recommendations for redefining policies based on risk.
· Higher performance antivirus scanning. Re-architected to provide higher performance, the Barracuda NG Firewall utilises a single-pass, antivirus scanning architecture that inspects both unencrypted and SSL-encrypted traffic.