Cisco IT Consultants

Cisco's PIX family firewalls and ASA 5500 Series firewalls combine next-generation firewall, intrusion protection, and Virtual Private Network features in an affordable, single-cabinet format. Both device families deliver powerful user and program policy enforcement, mutlivector attack protection, and secure access services. The increased knowledge sharing of integrated security services in a stand-alone package offers customers deploying these integrated solutions the advanced of advanced protection, reduced cost of ownership (COI), and less maintenance costs.

Cisco PIX firewalls and Cisco's ASA 5500 family combine with Cisco IOS Firewall, the Firewall Services Module for Catalyst 6500 Series switches, and Cisco 7600 family routers as components of Cisco's versatile, integrated firewall product. Engineered with a scalable, modular platform, every offering is designed with a specific array of options to provide more efficient security to a variety of networking situations. These solutions can be independently deployed to protect certain areas of a network environment, or can be combined for a systematic, defense-in-depth strategy following the architecture best practices described in the Cisco SAFE Blueprint. Completing the integrated firewall product line, Cisco has developed a complete security management catalog, ranging from Cisco security device and IOS security components and built-in appliance managers, to self-contained management applications, moving to make sure that businesses can productively use their Cisco protection solution investments.

PIX Firewalls
The popular PIX firewalls offer robust user and application policy enforcement, multi-source attack protection, and safe connectivity features in cost-effective, out-of-the-box solutions. These specialized appliances offer a wealth of built-in security and networking capabilities including state-of-the=art process-aware firewall features, industry-leading Voice over IP (VoIP) and multimedia security, reliable site-to-site and remote-access IP Security VPN networking, fault tolerance, intelligent networking features, and versatile management solutions. The PIX firewall family spans small plug-and-go appliances for small or home offices to stackable gigabit products with superior investment protection for large business and service-provider environments, Cisco PIX firewall appliances provide dependable protection, speed, and availability for network environments of all sizes.

PIX firewall appliances deliver a variety of setup, tracking, and troubleshooting options, providing IT managers the versatility to use the methods that most closely meet their needs. Management options range from centralized, policy-based administration utilities to integrated Web-based management to support for remote-monitoring standards such as SNMP and syslog. The integrated Adaptive Security Device Manager interface offers a powerful Web-accessible management solution that significantly streamlines the deployment, in-place configuration, and monitoring of a specific PIX firewall without the need of any extra software other than an ordinary browser and Java plug-in to be running on an administrator's PC. IT managers can also remotely configure, monitor, and analyze Cisco PIX security appliances via a CLI interface. Secure command-line interface access is possible through a number of techniques, such as Secure Shell Protocol, Telnet through IP Security (IPSec), and out-of-band through a console port. Cisco PIX security appliances also include dependable automatic-update capabilities, a set of revolutionary protected remote-management options that make sure that security settings and software images are always up to date. Also, Cisco PIX security appliances are compatible with a number of configuration and monitoring tools offered by Cisco AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data) partners.

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances 5500 Series Firewalls
Cisco ASA Firewalls are specially engineered devices that incorporate market-proven, best-of-breed protection and VPN services plus a new generation, adaptive design. The end product is a robust, versatile network security appliance better able to protect small and medium company and enterprise networks and, at the same time, lower the total deployment and maintenance costs of this unprecedented level of protection.

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series firewalls deliver robust application security via smart, application-aware inspection processes that examine traffic at Layers 4-7. This produces a safer network covering Web, voice, and 3G-mobile wireless services. To protect environments from application-layer attacks and to give businesses greater control over the programs and protocols utilized in their networks, these inspection engines integrate extensive application and protocol knowledgebases and rely on security enforcement solutions that include protocol anomaly sensing and application and protocol state tracking. Also incorporated are attack detection and mitigation technology including application and protocol command filters and URL deobfuscation. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances firewall inspection engines also deliver control over instant messaging and peer-to-peer file sharing, allowing businesses to police usage policies and preserve bandwidth for vital business applications.

At the same time as increasing network protection, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances 5500 Series firewalls also decrease installation and operational expenses. By providing broad Virtual Private Network and protection services, the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances 5500 Series firewall can be used as the the only platform for a multitude of environments, allowing product standardization. The Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series firewall can be used as a consolidated attack-protection appliance at the datacenter by taking advantage of its access control, process inspection, and malicious assault remediation technologies. The Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances firewall can also be deployed as a dedicated remote connectivity device using its VPN features. As another option, the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series firewall operates equally well in the network interior for interdepartmental access management and to guard against worms, viruses, and other malicious code inside workers may unknowingly introduce into the network. In small business and branch office networks, the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances firewall serves as an all-in-one platform providing comprehensive intrusion defense and VPN services while fitting within the cost structure and operational models of such deployments. This adaptive single-platform, multiple-solution design reduces the amount of devices that need to be deployed and managed while offering a standard functional and administrative system throughout all those deployments. This approach streamlines the education of setup, tracking, support, and security personnel. To further minimize operations expenses, Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances 5500 Series firewalls are also exceptionally network aware, enabling these devices to insert gracefully into the environment without disrupting legitimate traffic and processes.

How Progent Can Assist You with Cisco PIX and ASA Firewalls
Cisco PIX family firewalls and ASA Series adaptive security appliances incorporate a wealth of configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting features which give you the ability to deploy these security appliances to match your company's requirements. Progent's CISM and CISA authorized security professionals can assist you to create a security strategy appropriate for your environment and can set up your firewall to support your protection strategy. Progent's CISA-qualified IS security audit consultants and GIAC-certified IT security experts can evaluate the effectiveness of your current firewall deployment and help determine the overall security of your entire IT environment. Progent can also troubleshoot your security appliances both remotely and in person, and can train your in-house network support personnel to set up and maintain your security appliances.

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