With the rise in automation of so many tasks of not just businesses but daily duties of individuals, increased security and protection are also important.
Businesses use automation and cloud services for so many important and confidential things that require proper security. With calico enterprise, communication between K8s, legacy workload, and non-Kubernetes becomes seamless and secure. Calico can also be used to secure current host-based workflows along with K8s. Since all workloads are attributable to the same framework, the traffic that you anticipate is the traffic that flows.
The new release of Calico Enterprise and Calico Cloud has taken its security up a notch. Their unification with Fortinet Firewall Management System has added real-time interference prevention and detection, taking the application observability and security to another level.
Let’s see how we can integrate the firewall system with Calico.
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Firewall Integration with Calico Enterprise
As technology advances and updates, so do the application and workloads in Kubernetes clusters. These applications need to constantly, efficiently, and securely communicate with clusters outside via a firewall. In order to do so, firewalls require a continuous and steady IP address; however, a router IP address is limited and can immediately exhaust if used for every workload.
The new Calico Enterprise 3.0 feature enables firewalls to obtain access securely to services and infrastructure outside of the network. Moreover, the new feature has made it easier for IT teams to recognize a workload or application using the source IP, so your apps won’t get lost in a Kubernetes namespace.
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When teams advance from the initial/trial Kubernetes stage to the production stage, they start relocating apps into the container that has already fused with the larger IT environment. For this to take place, apps require commination with resources outside the container, and this creates hurdles for the teams involved.
For network security, firewalls are pervasive and widely used. The secret service processes for traditional compliance frameworks are focused on the firewalls they use for non-Kubernetes workloads.
Security teams use firewall managers to control various firewalls from a single IP address in order to protect the network and identify network access.
A firewall manager must meet 2 main prerequisites:
- Your Kubernetes cluster must use a zone-based infrastructure
- Your applications’ high-tech firewall functionality must be extended by the security team.
Calico’s egress gateway allows for unified firewall integration. The certain Kubernetes namespace can be assigned a routing protocol IP address by the Calico egress gateway. All workloads/ apps in that namespace are assigned that fixed IP address, and the firewall rules can be defined to control the access to resources outside the cluster. Source static will be applied to all traffic leaving or exiting the container from that namespace.
This enables you to use the fixed IP address as an identity for your application and access workloads based on data. As your process and application scale up, you won’t need to open an additional workload file and can have as many applications as you require.
Additionally, the integration process of a firewall with Calico is fairly easy and doesn’t require any manual intervention. All you have to do is outline all the applications and application labels you want to create with the IP groups within the firewall. Once that is done, the calico controller automatically organizes application and are fused into the larger IT environment. You can then proceed to create your own policies and security measures.
Benefits of Firewall Integration
Calico and K8s are widely used in multiple organizations that have safe security measures in place. Financial institutions, health institutions, and many such organizations wisely use these services to protect data and processes and manage workloads. Since K8s have limited IP deployment, firewalls can’t be used through them and require manual firewall adjustments that may result in loss of data, errors, and security risks and is expensive to do. Therefore, the unification of a universal firewall and Calico has significant benefits.
Maintains the overall security of an organization
Allows the relocation of containers to K8s architecture while preserving the security and applications, ensuring the effective implementation of the Kubernetes architecture through all organizations.
Safe implementation of a zone-based firewall in K8s
Allows managers of next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) to enforce and regulate a zone-based cybersecurity strategy in Kubernetes.
Use current processes and infrastructure to your advantage.
Allows corporate security teams to simplify and enable Kubernetes implementation and deployment by utilizing operating firewall techniques, procedures, and architecture.
Small Disadvantaged Business
Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) provides access to specialized skills and capabilities contributing to improved competitiveness and efficiency.
In Conclusion
Integrating firewall with calico enterprise provides signature-based prevention and intrusion detection functionality, along with enhanced security via live, automatic outlier detection, allowing users to inspect, identify, and solve the problems.
Integrating a firewall can automatically improve the overall protection in the Kubernetes architecture while enhancing efficiency and incurring no additional costs. The novel hybrid network packet capabilities are truly revolutionary for cloud computing, allowing organizations to collect internet traffic in dynamic, dispersed, and fleeting environments with a single click.
GET STARTED TODAY
Calico Enterprise provides a free trial, so you can see for yourself the benefits of running your workloads in a secure container. Begin by advancing your zone-based architecture and operating firewall to Kubernetes today.
If you’d like to learn more about this new enterprise solution, visit our website for details on how to get started with a free trial or contact us for assistance from experts.
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