Palo Alto Networks will soon change its licensing for all of its software firewalls and security services to a more consumption-based approach.
The new model uses credit-based licensing. It lets customers resize their software firewall as traffic levels change and add or delete security services on demand, as opposed to buying a fixed-size firewall based on projected traffic levels with security services bundled in.
Customers can start using this model now, and six months down the road it will be the only way that Palo Alto Networks will license its software firewalls and security services.
Palo Alto Networks’ Flexible Firewall Approach
In an exclusive interview, Palo Alto Networks’ VP of Product Management Mukesh Gupta said the new licensing approach continues the company’s decade-long software firewall leadership dating back to its VM-Series virtual firewalls. “And it started with use cases in the data center. So, VMware NSX or Cisco ACI where customers are trying to go software-defined everything, and they wanted a software version of the firewall as well.”
That required a new licensing mechanism, so the vendor came up with different models tied to customers’ projected performance requirements for their firewalls. Palo Alto Networks also added subscription bundles “so that it was easier for customers to select the software security subscriptions on top of that firewall,” Gupta said. “That model worked well for many years.”
But then cloud computing happened. In addition to migrating workloads to public clouds, companies also started demanding a cloud-like experience in their data centers. This includes consumption-based pricing and the flexibility to scale usage and add services on demand.
“And what we’re now doing is bringing extreme flexibility, simplicity, and agility to the network security and software firewalls,” Gupta said. “So that’s why we’re reinventing yet again how customers buy these software firewalls and security subscriptions. And I hope that the industry will adopt that model and make it easier for customers.”
Firewall Vendors Move to Flexible Licensing
However, other leading firewall vendors already adopted similar consumption-based licensing approaches. Fortinet, Forcepoint, and Check Point rolled theirs out last year.
Fortinet’s programs aim to give its virtual firewall customers more flexibility in how they consume those products and security services, said Vince Hwang, senior director of products at Fortinet. “For example, one of these programs, the Fortinet Flex-VM Program, allows customers to buy capacity in consumption points,” he explained. “They can allocate the points to any virtual firewall size and type of security services in seconds without incurring a procurement cycle. These virtual firewalls and security services can be used on any cloud and anytime. Customers can manage their consumption through a central portal available through Fortinet’s FortiCare service.”
Similarly, Forcepoint started offering an unlimited consumption subscription model last year. It’s called Forcepoint Advantage, and in a blog post about the new program, Forcepoint’s VP of Solution and Platform Marketing Ravi Srinivasan said it can save customers more than 30% on their total cost of ownership. “Enterprises are no longer locked into archaic fixed adoption schedules or unwanted shelf-ware,” he wrote.
Aviv Abramovich, head of security services product management at Check Point, said his company took a pay-as-you-go approach that differs from Palo Alto Networks.
“Check Point identified last year that cloud adoption isn’t only about the technology. The business process needs to be agile as well for customers to have the flexibility they need in order to deploy security,” he said. “Unlike Palo Alto Networks, Check Point created a PAYG [pay as you go] consumption-based business model that doesn’t require any upfront investment. Check Point partnered with leading distributors to have an online marketplace where these products can be accessible.”
Cisco Says License Flexibility Coming, PAN Claims No Contest
Meanwhile, a Cisco spokesperson said that vendor “is working on license flexibility and portability across security products including firewalls.”
A Sophos spokesperson said the company didn’t have similar plans in the works, and Juniper Networks did not respond to questions by press time.
Palo Alto Networks maintains that its licensing model remains fundamentally different from its fellow firewall vendors. Compared to Fortinet’s program, for example, Palo Alto Networks’ eliminated all fixed-sized subscription bundles and firewall models and allows per virtual CPU consumption. Additionally, its firewall credits apply to all customers, not just top-end enterprises and managed security services providers.
Additionally, Forcepoint Advantage is a completely different thing, according to Palo Alto Networks. It’s “yet another product bundle with many features/functions packed into one,” but it doesn’t include containerized firewalls (Palo Alto Networks does) and it’s not available to all customers with no minimum charge, a spokesperson said.
3 Main Customers Benefits
Palo Alto Networks says this new credit-based licensing approach has three main benefits. First, it allows them to pay for and use a firewall based on their actual — not projected — capacity and security needs. “They’re simply buying credits, and once they purchase those credits, they can either deploy what they thought they needed, or if their needs change, they can allocate those credits to different size of firewalls or different security subscriptions,” Gupta said.
Second, the consumption model lets the customer determine how many cores and how much memory to allocate to their software firewall. This means they can size their firewall with a few clicks and add or remove virtual CPUs to meet scaling and performance requirements instead of having to buy a whole new firewall model.
Finally, the new approach gives customers more flexibility around security subscriptions, Gupta said. “We are getting rid of the bundles.”
Palo Alto Networks offers eight security subscriptions now “and we’re planning to add more. Customers can buy these credits, and they’re free to use any of the existing subscriptions. They can change them anytime, including in the future as we add more.”
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