Tech Docs: Stay a Step Ahead with PAN-OS 8.1!

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We recently released PAN-OS 8.1, the latest release of the software that powers our next-generation firewalls. With over 60 new features and innovations, PAN-OS 8.1 will help you accelerate your adoption of next-generation security and protect your organization from a wide range of threats.

Release Highlights:

With this release Palo Alto Networks introduces a set of new features that offer richer security controls and operational simplicity to help you protect your users and data everywhere. Some of the highlights in version 8.1 are:

Comprehensive Security in the Cloud—Secure your deployments in more public cloud environments and leverage cloud native services.
Deploy the VM-Series firewall on Google Cloud Platform and directly from Microsoft Azure Security Center, and natively publish custom PAN-OS metrics to Azure Application Insights and Google StackDriver for monitoring and automation.
Deploy the Panorama virtual appliance on AWS and Azure. For deployment flexibility, Panorama virtual appliances now support all three modes—Management only, Panorama, and Dedicated Log Collector.
Rule Usage Tracking—Keep your rulebase current by tracking rule usage. Rule usage information helps you identify obsolete rules and eliminate unnecessary security gaps.
Device Monitoring on Panorama—Proactively track resource utilization, environmental conditions, and other key operational metrics over time and in bulk across large deployments to quickly identify potential issues for devices operating outside the normal range.
Serviceability of Content Updates—View a list of applications modified in a content release and assess how those changes impact your Security policy rules. You can also enforce a threshold timer when deploying content updates to managed firewalls from Panorama.
HTTP Header Insertion—Use HTTP Headers to control access to sanctioned enterprise SaaS application accounts while blocking access to consumer accounts. PAN-OS includes predefined headers that make it easier to control access to applications such as Dropbox, G Suite by Google, Microsoft Office 365, and YouTube.
Decryption Broker—Offload SSL decryption to the Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall and decrypt network traffic only once. Using the firewall as a decryption broker also allows you to consolidate security functions on the firewall, optimize network performance, and reduce the number of devices in your security infrastructure.
FQDN Support Enhancements– Support for FQDN address objects to enable the following use cases:
- Integrate with FQDN-based load balancers in a public cloud environment, such as the AWS ELB service, for operational efficiency.
- Configure a VPN peer with an FQDN instead of a static IP address on the firewall to establish VPN peering with a dynamically addressed VPN endpoint.
- Enable an N to M translation within a single Destination NAT rule. Use an FQDN or a group of IP addresses or both to load balance sessions to a translated IP address in a Destination NAT rule.

Where to Start:

PAN-OS 8.1 Release Notes—Provides instructions for upgrading to this release, known issues, software compatibility information, and addressed issues.
PAN-OS 8.1 New Feature Guide—Provides upgrade procedures, and describes all of the exciting new features introduced in PAN-OS 8.1 and how to configure them.

Full PAN-OS 8.1 Library: