Like so many other on-premise systems, networking gear is being replaced with cloud services that promise to lower costs and ease management operations. One of the providers driving the trend is an Israeli startup called Cato Networks Inc. that raised $40 million in funding this morning to fuel its work.

The firm runs a hosted traffic management platform that enables organizations to centrally control communications from their data centers, branch offices and cloud deployments. Cato even provides the ability to regulate mobile users who access business applications from outside the office. One early customer. The University of Michigan Health System, claims that it was able to remove four physical firewalls from its network after adopting the startup’s service. And the platform can also subtitle other types of network devices like WAN optimization appliances.

But more importantly, Cato does so while giving administrators more control over their infrastructure. The fact that wide-area traffic goes through its platform instead of on-premise systems removes the need to individually implement security policies at every edge location where an appliance is deployed. Instead, ruled can be set through a browser-based control dashboard that doubles as a centralized monitoring console. Cato claims that its platform makes it possible to configure everything from network-wide usage rules to targeted restrictions aimed at specific users or devices.

Today’s funding will enable the startup to make its platform available globally and start targeting large organizations with offices in multiple countries. The investment was led by Greylock Partners and saw the participation of five other backers including Cato’s two co-founders: Series entrepreneur Shlomo Kramer, who previously invested in Indegy Inc., and former Imperva Inc. product veep Gur Shatz. The latter executive said in a statement that his outfit’s platform is currently undergoing proof-of-concept trials at “dozens” of organizations.

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