What are two benefits of using a Palo Alto Networks NGFW in a public cloud environment? (Choose two.)

What are two benefits of using a Palo Alto Networks NGFW in a public cloud environment? (Choose two.)

A. Complete security solution for the public cloud provider’s physical host regardless of security measures

B. Automatic scaling of NGFWs to meet the security needs of growing applications and public cloud environments

C. Ability to manage the public cloud provider’s physical hosts

D. Consistent Security policy to inbound, outbound, and east-west network traffic throughout the multi-cloud environment

Answer: B, D

Explanation:

Using a Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) in a public cloud environment offers several key advantages related to security and scalability:

A. Complete security solution for the public cloud provider’s physical host regardless of security measures: Palo Alto Networks NGFWs operate at the network layer (and above), inspecting traffic flowing in and out of your virtual networks (VPCs in AWS, VNETs in Azure, etc.). They do not provide security for the underlying physical infrastructure of the cloud provider. That’s the cloud provider’s responsibility. NGFWs secure your workloads within the cloud environment.

B. Automatic scaling of NGFWs to meet the security needs of growing applications and public cloud environments: This is a significant benefit. Cloud NGFWs can often be configured to auto-scale based on traffic demands. As your applications grow and require more bandwidth and processing, the NGFW can automatically scale up its resources (or deploy additional instances) to maintain performance and security. This elasticity is a core advantage of cloud-based firewalls.

C. Ability to manage the public cloud provider’s physical hosts: As mentioned above, NGFWs do not provide management capabilities for the cloud provider’s physical infrastructure. You manage your virtual network resources and the NGFW itself, but not the underlying hardware.

D. Consistent Security policy to inbound, outbound, and east-west network traffic throughout the multi-cloud environment: This is a crucial advantage, especially in multi-cloud deployments. Palo Alto Networks NGFWs allow you to enforce consistent security policies across different cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP, etc.). This ensures consistent protection regardless of where your workloads are running and simplifies security management. East-west traffic (traffic between workloads within the same cloud environment) is also a key focus, as it’s often overlooked by traditional perimeter-based security.