New Cisco Firewalls

Following on from last Tuesday’s incident we are following through on our promises.
Our technical team had been discussing the finer points of various firewalls for some time. When it comes to choosing equipment they always spend quite a bit of time evaluating the options. They have to take into account a lot of different factors.
How well will it work with existing equipment?
Will it scale?
How long before we have to replace it?
How much does it cost?
Do we have staff who know how to use it?
Does it support ipv6?
How much traffic can it handle?
How many concurrent connections can it handle?
How much RAM does it need?
The list goes on and on…
In the end we decided to go with Cisco ASA 5500 series.
And since we love our camera phones here are a couple of snaps of the new firewalls. Before anyone asks – I’m not 100% sure when they’ll be installed.

And from behind:

And a slightly further away shot:

About the Author: Michele Neylon

Known for his outspoken opinions on technology and the Internet, Michele Neylon is the award winning author of several blogs and co-host of the Technology.ie podcast. A thought leader in the Internet community, Neylon is active within ICANN and an expert on policy, security, domains, ICANN, Nominet and Internet Governance. You can stalk him on various social media networks including Twitter and Instagram

9 Comments

Paul Kelly September 17, 2007 at 10:55

Nice. Shiny. Good pictures also. Again taken by my Nokia N95 .. lol….
Brian Kenny September 17, 2007 at 14:08

You’ve just put my shiny new asa 5505 to shame 🙁
Conor September 17, 2007 at 14:18

I’m wondering where in your network do you put those firewalls? edge/core etc?
Tom Doyle September 17, 2007 at 16:56

God, from the first pic I thought the firewalls we’re as big as the wall in the background….
great optical illusion 😉
Dan King September 17, 2007 at 17:49

Very nice!
Certainly beats the interface of the old PIXes too. Did you bulk up on bandwidth to go with it?
Michele Neylon September 17, 2007 at 19:15

Paul
I never claimed that I took the photos 🙂
Michele
Andy September 17, 2007 at 19:17

mmmmm nice, a “from behind” shot of a server… is this hard core hosting porn?
Michele Neylon September 17, 2007 at 19:21

@Brian – sorry 🙂
@Conor – currently we have the network divided into firewalled and unfirewalled segments, however since we’re expanding quite a bit the networking team have been working on sub-dividing it a bit more so that we can both scale more easily while maintaining a decent level of security for all firewalled clients
@Tom – the illusion was accidental! The firewalls are 1U form factor so they’re not exactly gigantic
Michele Neylon September 17, 2007 at 19:34

Dan – We always have more bandwidth than we need 🙂
Andy – ROFL