Next Generation Firewalls

Next Generation Firewalls inspect packets at the application level of the TCP/IP stack and are able to identify applications such as Skype, or Facebook and enforce security policy based upon the type of application.

Today, UTM (Unified Threat Management) devices and Next Generation Firewalls also include threat prevention technologies such as intrusion prevention system (IPS) or Antivirus to detect and prevent malware and threats. These devices may also include sandboxing technologies to detect threats in files.

Firewalls also perform basic network level functions such as Network Address Translation (NAT) and Virtual Private Network (VPN). Network Address Translation hides or translates internal client or server IP addresses that may be in a "private address range", as defined in RFC 1918 to a public IP address. Hiding the addresses of protected devices preserves the limited number of IPv4 addresses and is a defense against network reconnaissance since the IP address is hidden from the Internet.

Firewalls have existed since the late 1980's and started out as packet filters, which were networks set up to examine packets, or bytes, transferred between computers. Though packet filtering firewalls are still in use today, firewalls have come a long way as technology has developed throughout the decades. 

More info:  SDWAN Routers