Juniper Networks (JNPR) is rolling out new capabilities for its existing Next-Gen Firewall solutions (NGFW) in an effort to help enterprise users protect sensitive data from prying eyes. The new functionality, Juniper says it is offering its customers expanded security, control and efficiency for their systems while making it easier to deploy and manage firewalls in their environment, according to the company.

With its NGFW solutions, Juniper is adding capabilities such as centralized management and a new open-services platform for security features to its SRX Series Services Gateways, including an intrusion prevention system, unified threat management and application visibility. According to Juniper, the improvements will help users to optimize their enterprise resources for business-critical activities, including who gets access to applications and which applications receive the highest priority within the network.

“Juniper Networks is committed to providing enterprises with security technologies that deliver the performance, flexibility and control needed to protect against the ever-evolving threats they face,” said Nawaf Bitar, senior vice president and general manager of Security Business Unit, Juniper Networks, in a statement. “The new capabilities in our Next-Generation Firewall products give our customers even more options to manage and secure the enterprise edge with improved control and efficiency."

The new solutions will make centralized management of Juniper’s SRX and virtual Firefly Perimeter firewalls easier with the addition of Junos Space Security Director’s integrated logging and reporting functionality, with additional role-based access controls that manage next-gen security services such as firewalls, application security and unified threat management, according to the company. Juniper’s NGFW also features a central management platform for all available firewalls for easy management of multiple protection layers.

Next-gen firewall users can directly integrate their NGFW with Active Directory to create user role-based firewall policies on an individual basis. The optional use of the company’s enhanced AppID software for Juniper’s firewalls is meant to provide additional granular management for applications if needed, which ultimately will allow users to tack on additional protection as they see fit. Firefly Perimeter also supports NGFW capabilities for the first time with the new update, enabling customers to add additional layers of security to protect against weaknesses left by applications and other content-based threats, the company noted.

All of Juniper’s Next-Generation Firewall solutions are available now for enterprise users. The latest version also enables administrators to customize their NGFW solutions by inserting their signatures into their own custom-built applications.