Short answer
A managed firewall service means a provider runs your firewall for you: setup, policy, updates, monitoring, changes and incident response. Your team approves scope and changes instead of operating the platform.
In detail
Firewall as a service (FWaaS) is another name for the same idea. The firewall can sit at your site or be hosted on the provider's platform, and either way the provider owns day-to-day operation within an agreed scope.
What a FirstNet managed firewall includes:
- Design and policy: zones, segmentation and least-privilege access
- Build and onboarding: rules migrated safely with validation and rollback plans
- Operation: patching, ruleset hygiene, monitored alerts, tuning and regular posture reviews
- Change management through approved workflows with testing and rollback
- Reporting: monthly summaries, change records and improvement actions
FirstNet offers the service on Fortinet or Sophos. You first choose where the firewall lives, a dedicated appliance at your site or a hosted firewall on FirstNet's platform, then the level of protection. Support is available as 8x5 or 24x7.
A managed service suits organisations that need strong segmentation, consistent policy and 24/7 monitoring across sites and cloud, without the slow scaling and cost of running appliances themselves. You stay responsible for your internal LAN, endpoints and applications, and for approving changes through authorised contacts. Onsite hands-and-feet support, full network redesigns, security audits and penetration tests are scoped separately.
FirstNet sizes the firewall on your real inspected traffic, not your line speed, during a short discovery session before recommending an on-site or hosted option.
Source: FirstNet Hosted Firewall & Network Security service page →