TABLE OF CONTENTS Cisco s PIX/ASA firewall solution provides several different chassis, software features, and licensing and interface options. In this section, we cover in detail the PIX and ASA hardware, features, and options that will help you decide whether the PIX or ASA will provide functionality and performance to meet your DMZ requirements.
The PIX firewall line consists of five models, ranging from the SOHO model, PIX 501, to the high-performance service provider model, PIX 535.To determine the PIX to choose for your needs, you must first identify the requirements of your enterprise s Internet and DMZ infrastructure.To choose the proper firewall, you need to know some basic information: the number of DMZs (legs or interfaces) the firewall needs, approximate throughput required, number of users accessing resources through the firewall, and whether redundancy is required.
Once you have collected the requirements and have decided on a design, it s time to select the proper hardware that will protect your DMZ infrastructure. With the release of the PIX 7.0 software, the PIX firewall operating system is slightly different for the various PIX models.The PIX 501 and PIX 506E firewalls do not support the PIX 7.0 software release. That means that although all the PIX software versions have the same interface and share probably 90 percent of the same commands and functionality (so features such as NAT, URL filtering, content filtering, and VPN tunneling can be found across the entire line, depending on the software license purchased), some specific...
