Abstract: Disclosed herein are a system and method for managing a firewall of one or more host computing device associated with a customer, wherein each host computing device including a configurable firewall. In one arrangement, the system includes: a central management suite coupled to a first host computing device via a communications link, said central management suite including: a management portal for receiving instructions from said customer relating to a set of policies, wherein each policy defines a set of firewall rules; a storage device for storing said set of policies in a format inapplicable for configuring the firewall of the first host computing device; and a management policy module for retrieving from said stored set of policies a policy associated with said first host computing device.