AWS has fundamentally changed how infrastructure is built and operated. Applications are no longer deployed once and protected indefinitely. They are continuously created, scaled, updated, and retired across accounts and regions through automation.
Infrastructure teams have adapted quickly to this reality. Security teams, however, are often asked to protect these environments using operating models designed for static networks.
For many organizations, this mismatch is not immediately obvious. Native cloud firewall controls are easy to deploy, tightly integrated with AWS services, and effective at establishing baseline segmentation. They align well with early cloud architectures, where environments are smaller, change velocity is manageable, and security teams retain direct visibility into what is being deployed.
At this stage, simplicity is an advantage.
But as AWS environments mature, the assumptions that made early security models workable begin to break down. Accounts multiply. Regions expand. Shared services emerge. Application teams move faster. Encryption becomes pervasive. East-west traffic grows exponentially as architectures become more distributed and service-oriented.
What once felt manageable starts to feel fragile.
At scale, the question is no longer whether native controls are useful. It is whether the security operating model itself can keep pace with how AWS actually works.
When Firewall Operations Become the Limiting Factor
Most security leaders are not constrained by a lack of tools or technology. They are constrained by where time, expertise, and attention are being consumed.
In traditional environments, security teams are accustomed to owning firewall infrastructure end to end. They design high availability architectures. They plan capacity. They patch and upgrade software. They coordinate maintenance windows. They troubleshoot performance and stability issues when traffic patterns change.
These tasks are familiar, and in many cases unavoidable.
In AWS environments, however, these responsibilities scale differently. Each new account, region, or application adds infrastructure to manage. Each architectural variation introduces new edge cases. Each change increases the operational surface area security teams are responsible for.
Over time, security teams compensate by adding more rules, more exceptions, and more manual processes. What begins as deliberate policy design turns into incremental configuration. Policy intent becomes harder to understand, audit, and enforce consistently. Change velocity slows as teams struggle to assess blast radius and unintended consequences.
The outcome is subtle but significant. Highly skilled security teams spend more time operating infrastructure and less time reducing risk. Security becomes reactive. Coverage gaps emerge quietly. The environment remains functional, but fragile.
This is the point at which security outcomes become constrained not by security intent, but by the operational burden of infrastructure ownership.
Why Native Cloud Firewalls Stop Scaling on Their Own
Native cloud firewalls play an important role in AWS environments. They provide foundational network controls that are simple to deploy, integrate cleanly with AWS services, and support early-stage cloud adoption.
They are effective at enforcing coarse-grained segmentation and establishing initial guardrails.
However, most native controls operate primarily at Layer 3 and Layer 4. They rely on IP addresses, ports, and static assumptions that do not reflect how modern AWS environments behave at scale.
In practice, AWS workloads are ephemeral. Identity and automation drive access. Services are created and destroyed continuously. Encryption is the default, not the exception. Application communication patterns change dynamically as environments scale, heal, and redeploy.
When enforcement remains tied to static constructs, security teams adapt by adding more configuration. Rule sets grow. Exceptions accumulate. Visibility fragments across accounts and regions. Additional tools are layered in to compensate for blind spots, increasing operational complexity without eliminating underlying risk.
This is not a limitation of AWS. It is a signal that the security operating model must evolve beyond native controls alone to address modern cloud realities.
Security Intent Reframes the Operating Model
Security intent represents a fundamental shift in how cloud security is designed and operated.
Instead of asking security teams to manage firewall infrastructure, it asks them to define outcomes. What should communicate with what. Under which conditions. With what level of inspection, prevention, and visibility.
These are policy and governance decisions. They reflect business risk tolerance, compliance requirements, and architectural intent. They should not be constrained by how firewall infrastructure is built, scaled, or maintained.
In a modern AWS security model, intent is defined centrally and enforced consistently across environments. Infrastructure lifecycle responsibilities such as scaling, patching, upgrades, and availability are handled as part of the service rather than owned by security teams.
This separation does not reduce control. It restores it.
By removing operational mechanics from the critical path, security teams gain clarity. Policy becomes easier to reason about. Enforcement becomes more consistent. Change velocity increases without sacrificing confidence.
Security teams shift from operating infrastructure to governing risk.
For a deeper look at how this operating model shows up in real-world AWS environments, see our recent LiveCommunity blog on how security architectures evolve as cloud scale increases.
A Managed Firewall Experience Built for AWS Scale
Cloud NGFW for AWS was designed to support this shift in operating model.
Delivered as a fully managed firewall service, it removes the need for security teams to design high availability architectures, manage patch cycles, or plan capacity. These responsibilities are handled transparently as part of the service.
At the same time, Cloud NGFW for AWS provides deep, inline inspection that extends beyond basic segmentation. Traffic is inspected in real time, including encrypted flows, to prevent advanced threats that operate at the application layer.
Independent third-party testing has shown Cloud NGFW for AWS blocks a significantly higher percentage of exploits than native firewall controls. At enterprise scale, this difference is not academic. It determines whether modern, distributed workloads are meaningfully protected or simply segmented.
Equally important, the managed delivery model ensures this level of protection can be applied consistently across AWS environments without introducing additional operational burden.
Infrastructure Awareness Aligns Security to AWS
AWS environments are defined by automation, identities, tags, and continuous deployment. Security that cannot understand these constructs quickly becomes a bottleneck.
Infrastructure-aware enforcement allows security policies to reference the same native constructs used by platform and DevOps teams. Policies can be expressed in terms of services, roles, and intent rather than static network attributes.
As workloads scale, move, or redeploy, enforcement follows automatically. This eliminates the need for ticket-driven updates and manual rewrites that slow cloud modernization programs and create friction between teams.
By aligning security enforcement with how AWS environments are actually built and operated, organizations reduce operational drag while improving consistency and coverage.
Preparing for the Next Phase of Cloud Transformation
AI workloads will amplify the same pressures AWS has already introduced.
They increase east-west traffic. They rely heavily on encrypted communication. They introduce new service dependencies that change rapidly as models, pipelines, and infrastructure evolve. Manual security operations will not scale in this environment.
While many organizations are still early in AI adoption, the architectural trajectory is clear. Security will need to operate with more context and less human intervention. Operating models built around infrastructure ownership will struggle to keep up.
Organizations that modernize their security operating model now will be better positioned to support AI workloads without security becoming the limiting factor.
Security intent is the prerequisite for that transition.
Modern Procurement for Modern Security
Operating model changes extend beyond deployment. Increasingly, enterprises treat AWS Marketplace as a primary procurement channel because it aligns with cloud financial operations, committed spend, and native approval workflows.
Marketplace-led consumption accelerates time to value and removes procurement as a blocker to security coverage. Cloud NGFW for AWS is available through AWS Marketplace, allowing security to be acquired and deployed using the same processes that govern cloud infrastructure.
This alignment simplifies adoption and reinforces the broader shift toward cloud-native operating models.
Better Together on AWS
AWS provides the foundation for elastic, automated infrastructure. Palo Alto Networks delivers enterprise-grade inline prevention and a managed firewall experience designed for AWS scale.
Together, they enable organizations to modernize security without trading control for simplicity.
Native controls remain foundational. But as AWS environments scale, security leaders must move beyond operating firewalls as infrastructure and toward expressing security intent at cloud speed.
The question is no longer whether AWS has changed security. It is whether security has evolved quickly enough to keep up.
Where to Start
Modernizing a security operating model does not require replacing everything at once. It starts with understanding where operational friction is limiting risk reduction today.
The CLARA Cloud & AI Risk Assessment helps organizations evaluate their current AWS security posture, identify gaps created by scale and automation, and map a path from infrastructure-centric operations to security intent-driven enforcement.
The assessment provides a practical, architecture-aware view of where native controls are sufficient and where additional protection or operational simplification may be required.
Consuming Security at Cloud Speed
For organizations ready to move, procurement should not slow progress.
Cloud NGFW for AWS is available through AWS Marketplace, allowing security teams to deploy enterprise-grade, fully managed firewall protection using existing AWS accounts, committed spend, and native approval workflows.
This approach aligns security consumption with how cloud infrastructure is already purchased and operated, accelerating time to value without introducing new procurement complexity.