Avi Networks Unveils Intelligent Web Application Firewall

Avi Networks announced the upcoming release of its Intelligent Web Application Firewall (iWAF). As a software-only solution, iWAF operates as a centrally managed fabric across data centers, private clouds, and public clouds.

With iWAF’s scale-out architecture, enterprises are no longer constrained by the operational and performance limitations of traditional appliance-based web application firewalls. Additionally, iWAF’s integrated analytics engine offers IT organizations real-time security and operational intelligence through machine learning.

Traditional web application firewalls suffer from poor performance and “wall-of-knobs” complexity, operating as black boxes that provide little to no visibility. Avi's elastic scale-out platform enables iWAF to perform 50X faster than legacy appliances, processing hundreds of Gbps of throughput and over a million transactions per second.

In addition to improved performance, Avi iWAF provides powerful application intelligence. iWAF protects web applications from common vulnerabilities identified by Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), such as SQL Injection and Cross-site Scripting, while providing the ability to customize the rule set for each application.

iWAF analyzes the security rules that match a particular transaction, providing this insight in real-time as applications and attack patterns evolve. With the Avi Networks iWAF, IT teams no longer need to fly blind when writing and enforcing security policies. Based on this intelligence, one-click customization of rules and exceptions helps sharply reduce the problem of false-positive fatigue.

“Security and operations personnel need intuitive and scalable WAF solutions to effectively address their requirements in modern data center or cloud environments,” said Jim Duffy, Senior Analyst, Networking, at 451 Research. “With centralized management, elastic scale, and closed-loop security analytics, the Avi iWAF delivers a compelling model to secure web applications.”

The unique capabilities of Avi Networks’ iWAF include:

Highest-performance web application security

• Elastic, automatic scale-out across data centers and clouds
• Scalable per-application deployments allow each mission-critical app to get its own WAF

Analytics-driven, accurate security policies

• Real-time security insights eliminate false positives
• Visual policy checks prior to enforcement

Central, simplified policy management

• Central management and automation of all distributed iWAF instances
• Point-and-click policy configurations, with pre-defined templates for OWASP Core Rule Set, customizable for each application

“Appliance-based products weren’t meeting our needs, and as we evaluated alternatives, web application firewalling was our number-one consideration,” said Joris Vuffray, Head of Network and System Management at Swisslos, a Swiss lottery based in Basel. “We were pleasantly surprised by the Avi iWAF’s simple deployment, impressive ease-of-use, and intelligent security analytics, as well as the responsiveness of the Avi team.”

“In the face of ever-increasing cyber threats, enterprises need to protect their most important revenue-generating assets: their web applications. We designed iWAF to be robust and secure for any application, traditional or cloud-native, under any amount of traffic,” said Guru Chahal, Vice President of Product at Avi Networks. “By reimagining what a WAF could be for modern applications and hybrid environments, we were able to deliver better performance, intelligence, and price, all with the ease-of-use our customers have come to expect.”

The Avi Networks iWAF is the latest component of the Avi Vantage Platform, which features a Smart Load Balancer and an Application Service Mesh. Avi Networks recorded 440% growth in year-over-year bookings and 270% customer growth over the last four quarters.