Cloud computing
PaaS: what it is, applications and benefits
There is no difference between big companies and small and medium-sized enterprises, because information is the wealth on which the organization’s profitability is based.
One can well understand, therefore, how important it is for companies to identify and implement solutions that can ensure protection from cyber criminals’ intrusion attempts.
It is no coincidence that as attack techniques become increasingly sophisticated, companies are inclined to increase their defense budgets.
In addition to cybersecurity systems, the tools relied upon to build the fortress to defend include the firewall in its most advanced version, namely the Next Generation Firewall.
What is a Next Generation Firewall (NGFW)
The one that manages network traffic between hosts and end systems, allowing information to be transmitted between the various devices connected to the corporate network and the Internet, or blocking traffic if the analysis of packets coming from certain servers or specific IP addresses do not meet predefined security rules.
We have to imagine it, then, as a security filter that checks everything and stops at the door those who are suspicious or hiding something. Technological evolution forces companies to continually upgrade, so with the proliferation of cyber threats, particularly with the rapid spread of ransomware, stateful firewalls have proven to be easily circumvented and therefore unable to provide security.
Building on this need, in 2007 Gartner introduced the Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), defined as “a deep packet inspection firewall that goes beyond inspection and blocking of ports and protocols, adding application-level inspection, intrusion prevention, and intelligence input from outside the firewall.”
In addition to inspecting various traffic characteristics to enforce firewall policies on Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) order communication at higher levels than the traditional firewall, NGFWs add advanced capabilities that enable the prevention and identification of attempted attacks on corporate security systems.
What is the difference between an NGFW and a traditional firewall
Generally speaking, the former are able to go deeper in analyzing network traffic, to understand its origin, possible threats and related dangers that in case of access to corporate data can damage the most important endowment of enterprises.
At the level of functionality, the NGFW blocks traffic that does not conform to what is predetermined, looking at visibility the latest entrant enables a more thorough and reliable analysis of traffic, leveraging unified threat management services and ensuring the identification, prevention and reporting of a wider variety of attacks.
Functions and features of next-generation firewalls
Let’s look at them in detail.
- Deep packet inspection: compared to the traditional firewall, NGFW inspects higher-order traffic at TCP/IP communication layers, including the application layer.
This makes it possible to analyze and understand how the application in question operates on the traffic in both directions, thus gaining insight into predictable user behavior and more easily and reliably detecting malware hidden in seemingly normal traffic.
- Intrusion detection and prevention system: an NGFW ensures greater efficiency than the traditional firewall in detecting and preventing cyber attacks.
In-depth analysis of traffic allows for the detection of suspicious patterns and/or behavior so that what is apparent as a threat, whether known or unknown, can be blocked.
- TLS/SSL inspection: the TLS/SSL protocol is the most widely used protocol for current network traffic, and the Next Generation Firewall detects, decrypts, and inspects all traffic encrypted with that protocol, thereby being able to detect and block inherent threats intended to have detrimental effects on the affected company.
- Integration with threat intelligence platforms: NGFWs can integrate with external threat intelligence platforms, which aggregate data from multiple sources to provide a more detailed view of threats.
Possessing more information about dangers to dodge means making more informed decisions and reacting effectively and quickly to emerging threats.
- User Identification: in addition to predicting user behavior, a Next Generation Firewall allows network activity to be associated with specific users, as well as where they connect from, enabling it to play ahead and monitor suspicious users.
Types of NGFW
Hardware NGFWs are physical devices useful for local deployment, thus deployed mostly in data centers and other use cases that require specific physical equipment. Virtual NGFWs are software-based and run on virtual machines.
While they remain tied to the organization’s infrastructure and constrained to the processing power of the hardware from which they originate, they are tools characterized by flexibility and scalability, so they are ideal compared to hardware NGFWs themselves for virtualized, cloud-based services and apps. Designed to protect cloud-native environments (such as the Virtual Private Cloud, remote users, and distributed networks) with centralized security management, cloud-based NGFWs provide third-party firewall services from the cloud, enabling them to protect traffic that does not pass through a traditional data center. The evolution of technology and the rapid spread of artificial intelligence has generated more advanced cyber threats, but also appropriate defense tools.
One such tool is the proactive NGFW that leverages machine learning.
Introduced by Palo Alto Networks, it provides proactive, real-time, online zero-day protection by being able to identify variants of known and unknown attacks.
It also provides as well as comprehensive device visibility and behavioral anomaly detection.
Because of their nature, therefore, they have also been referred to as AI-firewalls.
Benefits of NGFWs.
Here’s why you need them
After all, the benefits that Next Generation Firewalls provide are as diverse as they are obvious.
First, they provide advanced protection from cyber threats, preventing intrusions and detecting malicious traffic.
A second prominent aspect concerns simplified network architecture, because by combining the functionality of multiple devices and appliances in a single platform, they reduce the complexity of the network infrastructure.
Third important benefit concerns support for regulatory compliance obligations, as an NGFW blocks unauthorized users from accessing sensitive resources within the network.
A requirement relevant to current regulations regarding privacy and data protection, such as the European General Data Protection Regulation.
In the face of an environment in which both the quantity and quality of offensives brought by cyber criminals continue to increase, with advanced malware disabling the use of a traditional firewall, the Next Generation Firewall is a tool that every type of business needs.
Combining effectiveness and simplicity, while facilitating the development of an established security operations center, is both an advantage and the reason why an NGFW should not be dispensed with.
How to choose the best option
A game changer has been the surge in user mobility along with the spread of the cloud.
In order to make an NGFW pay off in terms of security, you need traffic to go through an organization’s data center, although to avoid slowdowns you need to route Internet traffic locally.
Another aspect to consider is related to the encryption of web traffic, which is dominant today, and to perform TLS/SSL inspection forces the NGFW to use built-in proxy capabilities, which, by performing inspection at the software level instead of the chip level, scales down performance and penalizes the user experience.
On the other hand, however, bypassing inspection means that about 85 percent of attacks would go undetected, thus generating enormous damage to the affected companies.
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What PaaS means and what it is for
The service is managed in the cloud directly by the provider, so end users do not have to worry about configuring and maintaining servers, patches, security updates, and authentication procedures, which are automated once policies are established at the general level.
In other words, thanks to PaaS, developers can focus only on creating the best possible experience for their clients, without additional worries.
In addition to the environments needed to run applications, a PaaS usually offers a set of additional services that are useful for accelerating software development throughout its entire lifecycle.
This is the case with tools designed to facilitate design, right from the concept stages, and flexibly assist the entire workflow.
Not to be overlooked at this juncture is the availability of APIs, which are critical in helping enterprise developers and ISVs to create and connect applications that are efficient in performing their intended functions to fully meet the needs of end customers.
Advantages of the PaaS model
A Platform-as-a-Service offers numerous advantages to those entities that choose to implement it efficiently in their processes.
These include typical cloud benefits, such as the aforementioned total or partial exemption from the responsibility of server management, software upgrading, infrastructure and initial configuration of development environments, which integrate specific technologies, such as containers and Kubernetes, just to name two of the most popular, in the area of microservices creation and orchestration, respectively.
A PaaS service provider basically takes care of managing the hosted platform and providing the environment for running applications, relieving the end user of these tasks.
Programmers, in addition to having fewer distractions, can reclaim useful time to research new solutions and contribute to innovation in their work.
On the business front, since this is a typical cloud offering, it should also be noted that PaaS facilitates the migration and modernization of legacy applications.
In summary, organizations that choose to properly and consciously implement PaaS in their development processes can gain at least the following benefits:
- Cost containment: PaaS is based on a service-based model, which offers the possibility of so-called “pay as you grow,” obviating significant up-front investments typical of on-premise IT infrastructures, with all the risks of under- and over-estimation, as well as management burdens.
- Reuse of skills and investments: thanks to PaaS, fully exploiting one of the main peculiarities of microservices architectures, developers and ISVs can easily start new instances of operating systems, implement frameworks and to the other development tools, as well as use, from time to time, parts of code already used in previous projects.
- Reduced time to market for applications: with ready-made development environments and high automation of overall procedures, PaaS services enable teams to speed up the entire software lifecycle, from its initial stages, to enable rapid testing and deployment cycles for applications.
- Full support for DevOps: PaaS enables the factual implementation of DevOps strategies to functionally connect the work of development teams and facilitate the release of applications according to a continuous deployment based (CI/CD) model.
- Self-service logics to increase productivity: PaaS allows every aspect of management to be controlled through a unified control panel with self-service capabilities, through which developers can gain rapid access to the tools and resources they need.
Provisioning of development environments is automatic, enabling programmers to be readily active on their projects. - Use of secure platforms: PaaS services are operated by providers who base their business model on significant economies of scale and can continuously invest in ensuring high security and resilient standards for their IT systems through the use of highly specialized technologies and personnel.
Differences between PaaS, IaaS and SaaS
PaaS is one of the three main services available in public cloud, along with IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) and SaaS (Software-as-a-Service).
These are offerings that meet different objectives and complement each other vis-à-vis enterprises.
After defining and addressing PaaS, let’s see what IaaS and SaaS consist of.
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
IaaS was created with the goal of making available, via the Internet, virtual infrastructures complete with computing, storage and networking resources.
This approach frees companies from exclusively owning an on-premise hardware-software infrastructure to meet all workloads, as was the case in the traditional IT context.
Indeed, cloud providers make it possible to configure virtual machines (VMs) and control various aspects related to the organization and the IT services executed (applications, software platforms, Web sites, storage systems, databases, etc.).
Thus, IaaS is a model for enterprise system builders to have great freedom in configuring IT infrastructures capable of supporting workloads of any complexity, managing them remotely through a unified control panel.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS is undoubtedly the most popular cloud service model at present.
In this case, the provider hosts the application and makes it available to end users via remote access, taking care of everything necessary to ensure its proper functioning.
As with IaaS and PaaS, companies deploying applications on the basis of a service model do not have to take care of the underlying infrastructure, containing the upfront costs and burdens related to managing the entire lifecycle, including the continuous updates that the software punctually needs.
How Platform-as-a-service works
PaaS was not created with the goal of replacing the entire enterprise infrastructure for application development, but to make the environments needed to create modern microservice architectures faster and more accessible.
As mentioned earlier, in most cases, users access the services of a PaaS through a browser.
PaaS can be delivered via public, private, and hybrid clouds to provide services such as application hosting and Java development.
In this context, a multicloud approach is becoming increasingly popular, allowing the best alternatives in the marketplace to be identified, averting vendor lock-in risks as much as possible.
Among the main functions of a PaaS we find:
- development team collaboration
- application design and development
- application testing and deployment
- web service integration
- information security
- database integration
At the pricing level, PaaS is generally based on pay-per-use logic, with subscription-based formulas.
Providers charge a fixed monthly fee for access to the platform and its applications, based on actual resources used, which can be easily scaled up over time by the end user.
Examples in cloud computing
PaaS offerings in the catalog of cloud service providers have various types of services, designed to ensure the ready availability to developers of IT environments designed specifically for each operational situation.
Indeed, in the context of PaaS it is not uncommon to encounter the following acronyms, the description of which seems quite explicit.
PaaS = Platform as a service AaaS = Analytics as a service BaaS = Backend as a service FaaS = Function as a service DaaS = Data as a service STaaS = Storage as a service CaaS = Container as a service NaaS = Network as a service DBaaS = Database as a service AaaS =Authentication as a service aPaaS = Application platform as a service iPaas = Integration platform as a service mPaaS = Mobile platform as a service apimPaas = PaaS API management
Examples in cloud computing
In their approach to the cloud, companies cannot simply evaluate a catalog of offerings by choosing on the basis of price.
They would risk adopting solutions that are also good, but poorly tailored to their needs at the IT level.
The same is true when considering a platform such as that offered by PaaS.
The technical solution and economic offer must be coupled with a clear strategic vision, one that knows how to combine business objectives, budget availability, and evaluate the platform best suited to meet all the needs related to application development. In order to evaluate which cloud ecosystem is the most suitable, it is advisable to carry out an in-depth analysis, to identify which technological and methodological solutions should be adopted, not without having spread a shared and aware culture in the company that allows DevOps teams to really make the most of the potential offered by PaaS today, for example when it comes to configuring hybrid or multicloud IT.
These are aspects in which Deda Cloud has a proven track record in accompanying dozens of Italian companies on their IT transformation journey. To discover the PaaS ecosystem best suited to your company, Deda Cloud offers a wide range of solutions, supported by an ongoing consulting serviceGo to services
