Chapter List

Introduction

There are many ways to design and build your DMZ, and with so many products on the market, it might be difficult to decide which product is right for you. In the next few chapters we discuss several enterprise-level firewall solutions, including Cisco's PIX, Check Point's FireWall-1, and Microsoft's ISA 2000. We provide the information you need to decide which firewall meets the needs of your DMZ in terms of security, performance, functionality, manageability, stability, and reliability. Although all these products provide viable security solutions, they all have different requirements, features, and configuration methods that could lead you to choose one over the other. It is important to understand these products' capabilities and choose the product that meets the performance needs of your DMZ infrastructure and maintains a high level of security, one that you are comfortable supporting.

Reading this chapter, you will learn how to design and build a DMZ using Cisco's PIX firewall. We will advise you on the features of the PIX, guide you in the selection of the appropriate PIX hardware, and discuss different firewall arrangements as well as direct you on how to configure your firewall to securely pass traffic. By the end of this chapter you should be able to decide if the PIX is the right firewall for...