Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Administrator (PCNSA)Monitoring and ReportingMedium
A network security engineer wants to monitor the total number of sessions currently active on the firewall and quickly identify the top applications consuming these sessions. Which feature in the Palo Alto Networks firewall GUI provides this capability?
- ANetwork > Interfaces > Throughput
- BACC > Network Activity > Application Usage
- CDevice > High Availability > Operational Commands
- DMonitor > Logs > Traffic
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. ACC > Network Activity > Application Usage
The Application Command Center (ACC) is designed for real-time and historical visibility into network activity. The 'Network Activity' tab, specifically 'Application Usage', provides widgets that display active sessions and their associated applications, allowing for quick identification of top consumers.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. This path focuses on interface configuration and throughput statistics, not active sessions per application.
- C. This path is for managing high availability settings and operational commands, unrelated to network monitoring.
- D. Monitor > Logs > Traffic provides raw log data, not a summarized view of active sessions and top applications.
Application Command Center (ACC)
The ACC provides an interactive, graphical summary of network activity, security posture, and threat trends on the firewall.
- Offers real-time and historical data visualization.
- Includes widgets for applications, users, threats, and URLs.
- Facilitates quick identification of network anomalies and security incidents.
Memory trick: ACC is your dashboard for all network insights.