Introducing Credit Visibility for Cloud NGFW

[jpederson]

Co-authored by: By Sapna Mehta and Vijay Arumugam Kannan

We recognize that, as customers like you scale your workloads across Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure, securing your VPC/VNet traffic with high availability is critically important. You already rely on the fully managed Cloud NGFW service, which is purpose-built for each Cloud to deliver 99.99% availability and protect your traffic from known and unknown threats. Cloud NGFW is available through both pay-as-you-go and contract-based credit models, providing unmatched financial flexibility for your cloud network security posture.

Even with all this flexibility, customers like you were hitting a common road bump with Cloud NGFW credits. You were flying blind on how your credits were consumed. Was it heavy traffic in the European region? Was it the new Threat Prevention add-on you deployed? You needed to connect the dots between your security spend and your actual cloud usage.

We are excited to announce credit usage visibility for Cloud NGFW. This feature provides the data-driven insights you need to confidently track consumption trends, identify specific cost drivers, accurately forecast usage, and optimize resource planning across your cloud deployments.

The Cloud NGFW Credit Model: Enabling Elasticity and Cost Control

Before diving into the new features, let's quickly touch on why the credit model works for you. The credit purchasing model aligns directly with cloud principles by providing flexibility and discounted pricing compared to pay-as-you-go. This model is designed to support your elastic cloud environment:

• Cost Optimization: You receive discounted pricing with the option for private pricing under multi-year contracts.
• Pooled Flexibility: Credits are a shared, dynamic currency applied across any deployment, allowing you to reallocate credits between AWS and Azure environments as your business needs evolve.
• Burst Protection: Your traffic is always secured, and your usage is averaged over a month, adding Flexibility to burst above the purchased capacity (credits), providing cost-effective burst forgiveness for sudden spikes without immediate overage penalties (although any usage beyond your monthly average is, of course, subject to overage charges). 

But we knew this flexibility created a new challenge: transparency. Your credits cover everything from the base firewall resource and traffic volume secured to advanced services like URL Filtering and centralized management with Strata Cloud Manager. With so many consumption points, a simple monthly bill wasn't enough for your needs.

We heard you loud and clear: You needed to know what was driving your costs so you could plan smarter and tie your security spend to your business units for chargeback.

Your 4-Step Path to Credit Management & Visibility

We've integrated a powerful new Credit Management & Visibility Application right into the Palo Alto Networks Customer Support Portal. Think of it as your new Cost Explorer for Cloud NGFW. Here's a quick walkthrough of how you get from activation to deep insight:

Step 1: Set Your Plan with Deployment Profiles

After purchasing your credits, the first step is proactive planning. In the Credit Management Application, you'll create Deployment Profiles. 

This is where you tell the system, "I expect this much usage from my AWS production environment in US-East, and this much from my Azure dev tenant." You simply:

1. Select your credit pool.
2. Choose your cloud type (AWS or Azure).
3. Assign the relevant firewall serials.
4. Allocate the number of credits per deployment.

These profiles help you align your credit budget with your actual cloud architecture before usage even begins!

Step 2: See the Big Picture on the Dashboard

Forget digging through spreadsheets. Once you have established your deployment profiles, you can proceed to the Credit Dashboard. Just log into the Customer Support Portal, navigate to your Cloud NGFW Credits, and click “Check Usage Details.”

You'll get an immediate view of consumption across your entire credit pool. Use the Chart View to visualize trends—see instantly if your traffic volume is spiking or if one particular region is an outlier. Need the details for a report? Switch to the Table View and export a detailed CSV for internal chargeback and budgeting.

 

Watch the walkthrough video for a step-by-step demo of navigating the dashboard and viewing credit usage.

 

Step 3: Go Granular—Per-Firewall Insight

This is the feature customers are most excited about. It's not enough to know the pool usage; you need to understand how each firewall is performing.

Our Firewall Resource Usage Details view lets you drill down. You can see:

• The exact credit consumption per firewall.
• The data secured (in GB) per resource.
• Filter usage by custom time ranges.

This level of detail is a game-changer for organizations with multiple business units. Now, you can align spend with usage by accurately charging back costs to the teams using the resource. This promotes transparency and makes security consumption traceable.

Step 4: Stop Monitoring, Start Getting Alerts

Let's face it: manually checking your credit balance is the last thing you need to worry about. We built in automated usage notifications so you can relax.

Cloud NGFW will now send you proactive alerts that help you stay ahead of the curve:

• You'll receive alerts when your credit utilization reaches 50%, 90%, and 100% of your credit limit.
• We'll send contract expiration reminders at 30, 15, 7, and 0 days before expiration.
• And, of course, monthly usage reports.

No more surprises. You can respond quickly to an unexpected usage spike or plan your renewal and expansion well in advance. Proactive notifications ensure operational continuity and financial control.

 

Take Control Today

Cloud NGFW delivers the robust protection and dynamic flexibility required by modern enterprises. With this enhanced credit visibility, you gain the data-driven control necessary to optimize your security budget and scale your cloud operations with precision.

Ready to take control of your Cloud NGFW credits?Log in to the Customer Support Portal and optimize your credit strategy today.

New to Cloud NGFW? Start a free trial in AWS or Azure today and experience fully managed, enterprise-grade firewall protection – without the operational overhead.

Learn More

• Credit Management Guide for AWS
• Credit Management Guide for Azure
• Watch the Credit Management Video