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SUNNYVALE, Calif., Mar. 2, 2011 – Palo Alto Networks, the network security company, today announced the immediate availability of GlobalProtect™, the new PA-5000™ Series, and its fourth major release of PAN-OS™. For the first time, this new hardware and software extends the unique enterprise capabilities of Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls to meet network security demands in three distinctive ways:

• Secure Users and Data Regardless of Location - Enterprises can now extend protection over all types of traffic, applications, and threats beyond the physical corporate perimeter.
• Meet the New Data Center Requirements - Enterprises can now sustain 20Gbps of next-generation firewall performance in their data center networks.
• Eliminate Network Traffic Blind Spots - Enterprises can gain insight into suspicious traffic and applications and establish policies that increase protection against the unknown.

Extending Next-Generation Firewall Market Leadership

Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls provide policy-based visibility and control over applications, users and content to more than 3,500 enterprises worldwide. Only Palo Alto Networks customers can accurately identify and safely enable the use of applications while scanning their content for threats and potential data leakage. This includes Palo Alto Networks' unique ability to inspect SSL-encrypted traffic – from sites such as Gmail and most recently, Facebook – and to control circumventors like TOR or UltraSurf to run freely on corporate networks.

With today's announcement, Palo Alto Networks is extending this leadership position on three fronts:

• Performance - The Palo Alto Networks PA-5000 Series breaks new ground on hardware architecture and performance. It is the industry's fastest next-generation firewall – all apps, all ports, all the time at up to 20Gbps.
• Reach - GlobalProtect is an innovative approach to extending the same policies, visibility and control of the next-generation firewall to any and all user network connections regardless of their location.
• Functionality - With the latest release of PAN-OS, enterprises can write custom App-IDs for their internally developed applications as well as new capabilities to identify previously unknown applications and suspicious traffic that could indicate botnet infections.

"For the first time in our industry's twenty-year history, enterprises en masse are sending their traditional network security devices to pasture," said Rene Bonvanie, vice president of marketing at Palo Alto Networks. "We acknowledge our role in this market inflection and remain committed to consistently delivering innovative solutions that address the new challenges enterprise IT organizations face today."

The Logical Perimeter

With the release of GlobalProtect, Palo Alto Networks aims to re-invigorate the discussion on how the industry can feasibly separate policy from physical restrictions. Palo Alto Networks is proposing the concept of the logical perimeter, which it believes provides the necessary framework for integrating a standardized and consistent approach to security into every network connection regardless of location. Rules and policies remain consistent and the best intelligence and protections are universally applied.

"Enterprises want to embrace an architecture that provides consistent protection and enforcement to their remote workforce, making network security a fundamental part of every connection by design, as opposed to something that is tacked on at the end," added Bonvanie.