WatchGuard® Technologies, a provider of unified cybersecurity, has announced the launch of FireCloud Internet Access, the first in what it’s describing as “a new family of hybrid secure access service edge (SASE) products”. The company said that FireCloud “uniquely meets the needs of hybrid organisations and WatchGuard’s partners by delivering consistency across Fireboxes and FireCloud with nearly identical configurations and no learning curve.”
Managing real-world cybersecurity means managing hybrid networks that combine traditional on-premises and Cloud/firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS) environments. Many vendors providing SASE solutions overlook the importance of integrated on-premises environments, which diminishes the value of deploying a SASE solution. When a SASE solution does not take these environments into account, they end up creating isolated systems that are managed separately, leading to unnecessary complexity and overhead.
FireCloud Internet Access, WatchGuard said, is the “right answer” for hybrid environments because it integrates with WatchGuard Cloud and shares unified policy management with Firebox, combining firewall-as-a-service (FWaaS) and secure web gateway (SWG) to deliver robust protection without complexity. Furthermore, WatchGuard enables managed service providers (MSPs) to deliver a valuable SASE solution to their clients with an adoption model that fits their hybrid environments. This solution is part of the WatchGuard Unified Security Platform® architecture, which includes Identity, Network, and Endpoint security components, unified management in the WatchGuard Cloud, and a common installation framework for WatchGuard endpoints.
“FireCloud Internet Access provides real security for real-world challenges that today’s businesses face. As remote and distributed work environments evolve and companies transition to the Cloud, the range of threat surfaces and location of endpoints that need protection has expanded,” said Andrew Young, chief product officer at WatchGuard. “Existing solutions don’t allow security teams to seamlessly manage their network security in concert with their SASE deployments, creating security gaps and management complexities. To overcome these limitations, we have developed a new hybrid SASE approach which begins with FireCloud Internet Access.”
The FireCloud Internet Access Difference: In addition to being uniquely designed for hybrid Cloud/on-premises environments, FireCloud Internet Access also promises ease of deployment, flexible and scalable licensing and pricing, and integration into WatchGuard’s threat detection and response platform.
- Designed for Hybrid – WatchGuard’s SASE architecture is one of the few solutions that is designed to deliver value and benefits to a hybrid environment. For lean IT teams or MSPs, this approach means easier management, consistent security controls, and lower costs over other SASE offerings.
- Ease of Deployment – Administrators can configure and enforce security policies from a single interface, which simplifies management by using consistent policy structures and terminology. Security settings are automatically deployed to all WatchGuard-hosted points of presence (PoPs) worldwide, ensuring consistent policy enforcement no matter where the user is located. FireCloud clients are delivered from the WatchGuard Cloud, making them easy to deploy and manage.
- Flexible and Scalable – The flexible pricing available with WatchGuard’s FlexPay helps build and grow managed security services provider (MSSP) business. As a firewall-as-a-service, the number of users doesn’t impact performance, and more licenses can be easily added with customer growth.
WatchGuard is committed to delivering a complete SASE solution to meet partners’ and their clients’ needs. Over time, WatchGuard’s FireCloud family of solutions covering private access, SD-WAN, ZTNA, and CASB will be built out and deployed, and along the way, FireCloud customers will also benefit from soon-to-be-released integrations with ThreatSync+ software as a service (SaaS) delivering overwatch threat detection and response, and the client will be integrated with the soon-to-be-released WatchGuard Universal Agent that simplifies device management. As always, WatchGuard said it will work closely with partners to determine the specific SASE needs of their clients.
“SASE is the future of secure connectivity, merging network and security functions into a Cloud-native service. With FireCloud Internet Access and its overall approach to hybrid SASE architecture, WatchGuard’s focus on delivering powerful cybersecurity solutions specially designed for MSPs is on full display,” said Kevin Willette, president of Verus. “This is an affordable and effective solution to protect our clients’ networks and users while still using the same enterprise security found in our Firebox, which makes my business more efficient and improves our bottom line.”
This news follows WatchGuard’s recent acquisition of ActZero, a leading provider of Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services, to accelerate MDR growth for MSP partners and extend their sales reach. WatchGuard, which received recognition from IT Awards, ChannelVision, Fortress Cybersecurity, InfoSec Awards, and TMCnet for its security solutions in 2024, continues to lead the industry in security innovation to offer MSPs more scalable, ready-to-sell solutions that drive revenue.
