Juniper concentrates Sase security control in the cloud

Dubbed Security Director Cloud, Juniper Networks’ cloud-based security monitoring service provides centralized control and protection of corporate resources on-premises or in the cloud. It is also a key element of Juniper’s Secure Access Services Edge (Sase) strategy. Indeed, Security Director Cloud concentrates in a central point the management of the corporate security services, in particular the definition of policies, as well as the detection and prevention of threats. The vendor (along with other leading enterprise network vendors like Cisco, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (Aruba), and VMware, and service providers like Cato Networks, Akamai, and Zscaler) are committed to develop Sase support in its product families.

Several security products associated with its Connected Security architecture are already supplying the equipment manufacturer’s Sase offer. This is the case, for example, with its cloud-based Advanced Threat Prevention (ATP) solution, which offers advanced protection against malware. This is also the case with Juniper’s SRX and vSRX firewalls, which allow remote configuration and control of security, network and application policies. Juniper is also working to integrate AI into its security equipment, and also into its MX Series routers and EX and QFX Series switches. In addition, Juniper has intelligent SD-WAN technology acquired with the acquisition of 128 Technology last December for $ 450 million. 128 Technology’s Session Smart software promises to lower operating costs for SD-WAN and WAN networks by making intelligent routing decisions based on sessions and application needs over individual traditional tunnels.

Learning before action

“The principle of Security Director Cloud is to create security policies once and for all and extend them to any user, device and application, regardless of location changes,” said Kate Adam, senior director of marketing for Juniper Networks security products. This means that customers can develop a unified security policy and apply it to all traditional and cloud-delivered resources. “When moving distributed applications, some operations can create a blind spot. It’s a real headache for security, and Security Director Cloud solves that problem, ”said Kate Adam. “Juniper’s services perform in-depth analysis, provide personalized reports and recommendations on threat exposure and security policies to help customers mitigate risk, maintain business agility and reduce operational costs, ”she added.

Once connected, Security Director Cloud learns customer policies and configurations and synchronizes them with on-premises firewalls. “The service includes zero-touch provisioning and configuration wizards to secure connectivity, content and provide advanced threat protection,” said Ms. Adam. The platform includes Security Director Insights, a tool that correlates detailed attack information with threat information – including information about products from other vendors – to automatically update security policies without manual intervention, ”said Kate Adam. Security Director Cloud will be available at the end of the month.