A managed service that inspects and filters network traffic entering and leaving your cloud virtual network, blocking malicious traffic and enforcing security policies. Like a security checkpoint at a border crossing — every vehicle (packet) is inspected against a set of rules before being allowed through.
A financial services company uses AWS Network Firewall to inspect all traffic flowing between their VPCs, blocking known malicious IP addresses, detecting intrusion attempts, and enforcing strict egress rules that prevent data exfiltration — all without managing any firewall hardware.
All provide managed network traffic filtering for cloud networks. AWS Network Firewall and OCI Network Firewall are dedicated managed firewall services that support stateful inspection and threat-signature features. Azure Firewall Premium is a managed firewall with advanced threat protection (IDPS/TLS inspection). In Google Cloud, core firewalling is delivered via VPC firewall rules (including hierarchical policies) and advanced intrusion detection is provided by Cloud IDS; together they cover many “network firewall” use cases, though they are separate products.