How Next-Generation Firewalls Work
"Next-generation firewall" (NGFW) is a widely used industry term. Here's a general, plain-language explanation of what generally distinguishes it from an older, traditional firewall.
Traditional firewalls: ports and addresses
Older firewalls generally made allow/block decisions primarily based on IP addresses and port numbers, without much visibility into what application or content was actually inside the traffic.
NGFWs: application awareness
Next-generation firewalls generally add the ability to identify specific applications and content within traffic, allowing much more granular policies than "allow/block this port."
Integrated intrusion prevention
NGFWs commonly bundle in intrusion prevention system (IPS) capabilities, actively inspecting traffic for known attack patterns rather than just filtering by address and port.
SSL/TLS inspection
Because so much traffic is now encrypted, NGFWs generally include the ability to inspect encrypted traffic (with appropriate certificates configured), which older firewalls typically couldn't do.
This is general educational information about the NGFW category broadly, not specific to any one vendor's exact implementation or feature set.