Microsoft Azure gets a WAN and a Firewall

Microsoft has made a few announcements in conjunction with their Azure Cloud adding two new services to their portfolio. The two new services announced are Azure virtual WAN and Azure firewall.

Azure virtual WAN will be a networking service that will automate branch to branch connectivity through Azure. It will connect the customer routers within a facility and give the option of expanding the ecosystem of new software-defined WAN. Customers will also be able to build a network through this new WAN feature for a very small fee. Through this, customers can route traffic to virtual appliances such as Firewalls and Azure network security services.

The second major service announced is Azure Firewall. It will be a cloud-native network security service designed to protect Azure virtual network resources. The Firewall will enable high-availability and unrestricted cloud scalability. The Azure Firewall will help protect networking connections with logging metrics and other security features.

Apart from these two major announcements, Microsoft will also start the Azure Data Box Service. Azure Data Box Service helps moving data into the cloud by loading it onto shippable appliances. They are also introducing a new Data Box Disk that will allow people to transfer terabytes worth of data. You can currently order up to five of these data box disks that can hold up to forty terabytes of data.