Netgate pfSense Plus Software Now Approved By AWS Foundational Technical Review

October 5, 2022 (AUSTIN, TX) Netgate^® is pleased to announce the approval of pfSense Plus software under the AWS Foundational Technical Review (FTR) process. The FTR process is designed to allow AWS Partners, like Netgate, to confirm their development processes are aligned with AWS best practices around areas of security, reliability, and operational excellence. These practices are designed to ensure the best possible customer experience when using Netgate products on AWS.

pfSense Plus software is a popular Netgate security product that offers exceptional firewall, router, and VPN capabilities. Many people are familiar with pfSense Plus software on Netgate security gateway appliances, but fewer people know pfSense Plus software is also available on the AWS cloud.

Netgate approaches every development task with best practices and the customer experience in mind. As a result of passing the FTR process for pfSense Plus software, AWS recognizes Netgate for its technical expertise by elevating Netgate to the Validated Partner level. This confirms Netgate's development efforts and dedication to customer experience. Netgate continually updates detailed documentation for pfSense Plus software on AWS and offers 24x7 support to help customers. Plus, it is now easier than ever to find Netgate on the AWS Partner Solutions Finder.

“We’re excited to expand our partnership with AWS and to continue to provide affordable cloud security solutions to our customers,” TJ Scholand, Netgate, Partner Marketing Manager.

What is a FTR?

The FTR process serves to ensure that products running on AWS are developed in alignment with 6 principles or best practices in mind:

• Operational Excellence - focuses on continuous improvement of processes and procedures
• Security - focuses on confidentiality and integrity of data
• Reliability - focuses on performance as intended
• Performance Efficiency - focuses on optimization of computing resources
• Cost Optimization - focuses on resources over time without overspending
• Sustainability - This newest concept focuses on a shared responsibility model for minimizing environmental impact when running workloads in the cloud.

These concepts are developed to provide the customer with the best possible user experience when using AWS Partner products on the cloud.

Use Cases and Benefits of pfSense Plus Software on AWS

There are 3 popular use cases for running pfSense Plus software on the cloud:

• Securely connecting on-premise infrastructure to the cloud
• Protecting cloud-based applications and workloads
• Providing secure access to or between cloud workloads and applications

Additionally, pfSense Plus software has several benefits when operating on AWS:

• pfSense Plus software has a built-in wizard for configuring VPN connections to any Virtual Private Cloud(s) (VPC) you may be using on AWS. This can be useful for quickly connecting an on-premises (non-AWS) pfSense instance to a VPC on AWS:

• An additional benefit of using pfSense software on AWS involves the number of VPN connections required. With pfSense Plus software, there are no additional charges for individual connections, there is a simple hourly charge based on the size of the EC2 instance selected. Users should consider this vs other options on the AWS cloud that may charge by both the number of VPN connections and by the hour.

For more information about pfSense Plus software on AWS, contact Netgate at +1 (512) 646-4100 or sales@netgate.com, or visit us on AWS.

About Netgate

Netgate is dedicated to developing and providing secure networking solutions to businesses, government and educational institutions around the world. Netgate is the only provider of pfSense products, which include pfSense Plus and pfSense Community Edition software - the world’s leading open-source firewall, router, and VPN solution. TNSR^® extends the company’s open-source leadership and expertise into high-performance secure networking – capable of delivering compelling value at a fraction of the cost of proprietary solutions.