Cisco Network Consulting Firm

Cisco is a long-time leader in delivering state-of-the-art firewalls for the broadest possible range of environments. Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) provide an advanced firewall platform that marshals dedicated hardware, cloud services, and next-generation intrusion protection system (NGIPS) to block, discover, and mitigate cyber attacks automatically. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE firewall consultants can help you to design and execute a smooth upgrade to Firepower Series firewalls from Cisco's legacy ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, or PIX appliances and show you how to enhance Firepower firewalls with Cisco's cloud-based services to build and centrally control network environments that include branch offices, data centers, private clouds and public clouds. Progent's firewall consultants can also help you to maintain and debug older-generation Cisco firewalls. Progent's certified network security consultants can assist you with policy creation based on leading best practices so you can establish a consistent security profile that applies to all your networked endpoints anywhere.

Cisco's Firepower NGFW Firewall Appliances
Cisco's Firepower NGFWs Firewalls deliver a major performance improvement over Cisco's popular ASA 5500-X firewalls and offer unified management and automation of advanced security capabilities like application visibility and control, next-generation intrusion protection (NGIPS) with intelligent prioritization of risks, advanced malware protection (AMP), DDoS mitigation, and multi-node sandboxing. For more information about Cisco's Firepower line of Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs), refer to Firepower Series firewalls consulting experts.

Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series and Legacy Firewalls
Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX firewall appliances provide integrated firewall, VPN, and IPS capabilities in single-box devices, delivering a broad range of features to meet the security and compliance requirements of companies ranging from small and mid-size businesses to enterprises and Internet service providers. Cisco's ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX firewalls enable IT security teams to protect their network perimeter and provide safe offsite and mobile access while utilizing advanced administration tools based on Cisco's industry-leading firewall technology.

Cisco's ASA 5500 and PIX 500 firewalls have reached end-of-life status but remain commonly deployed in smaller businesses and in some enterprise data centers. Cisco's ASA 5500-X Next-Generation Firewalls represent significantly more value and have superseded the ASA 5500 and PIX 500 families of firewalls for new deployments. Still, Cisco's older model firewall appliances, if carefully managed, can deliver a high level of protection by providing a variety of security functions including stateful firewall, Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections, and IPS.

Since Cisco's purchase of Sourcefire, the entire family of Cisco ASA 5500-X firewalls can be configured to support Firepower Services, built on Sourcefire's Snort technology, which is the world's most deployed network intrusion protection system (IPS). Firepower services bring powerful new capabilities including advanced malware protection (AMP), URL filtering, dynamic threat analytics, and automation.

Progent's Cisco CCIE-certified network consultants can assist you to support and troubleshoot older ASA 5500 and PIX firewall appliances and can also help you to design and carry out a smooth upgrade to Cisco's ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower. Progent can also assist you to plan, configure, tune, administer and debug new firewall ecosystems based on Cisco's latest ASA 5500-X models with Firepower Services. Progent's firewall consultants can also help your organization to migrate from your Cisco ASA 5500-X deployment to Cisco's latest Firepower Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs).

Cisco's ASA 5500-X Firewall Product Family
Cisco's comprehensive line of ASA 5500-X security appliances includes an enhanced substitute for every rack-mountable unit in the previous ASA 5500 line of devices. Each ASA 5500-X model is suited for the same market as the associated earlier models, which gives most plenty of choice for picking a firewall that meets their security needs and IT budgets. All ASA 5500-X products are based on Cisco's proven stateful-inspection firewall technology and all include purpose-built 64-bit hardware with multicore processors and support Cisco's powerful protection services. All models in Cisco's ASA 5500-X family provide consistent security across any combination of physical, virtual, and cloud environments.

For more information about ASA 5500-X firewalls, Firepower services, and Progent's support for ASA firewalls, visit Firepower configuration and troubleshooting expertise

Cisco's Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X Security Appliances
Cisco ASA 5500-X firewalls work with either software or physical modules that enable Cisco's Firepower Services, which provide layered protection against advanced attacks. Firepower Services are powered by technology acquired by Cisco from Sourcefire. Major capabilities of Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X firewalls include:

• Layered protection against familiar and new threats
• Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) that utilizes big data techniques to find and mitigate intrusions
• A Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System that provides contextual analysis that covers users, network infrastructure, software applications, and content to discover threats that incorporate multiple vectors
• Fine-grained Application Visibility and Control that is aware of thousands of applications and can automatically launch standard and custom IPS policies depending on the severity of risk

Smaller implementations of Cisco ASA firewalls can be efficiently managed using Cisco's on-device Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) Adaptive Security Device Manager, a web utility provided with all ASA 5500-X versions. ASDM provides a simple web console for configuring, managing, and debugging ASA 5500-X appliances and modules.

For more complex environments, ASA 5500-X appliances with Firepower Services can be managed with Cisco's Firepower Management Center, available as one or several physical or virtual appliances. Cisco's Firepower Management Center provides centralized firewall management, Application Visibility and Control, advanced IPS, URL filtering, and Cisco's Advanced Malware Protection. Because of ongoing rebranding since Cisco's acquisition of Sourcefire Defense Center, Firepower Management Center has been delivered under various names including Cisco Defense Center, FireSIGHT Defense Center, and FireSIGHT Management Center.

Firepower Management Center offers features beyond those available with Cisco's on-device Adaptive Security Device Manager tool. Additional capabilities include greater context awareness, Advanced Malware Protection with mitigation for client devices, a dashboard that provides dynamic infrastructure visualization, automated policy tuning based on impact evaluation of threats, advanced IPS, custom application discovery for Application Visibility and Control, customized health notifications, improved reporting options, and application interfaces for host input and databases. Hardware-dependent capabilities like clustering, stacking, switching, routing, VPN, and NAT must be managed using either the on-device ASDM or the ASA 5500-X command line interface.

Cisco ASA 5500 Firewalls
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances 5500 Series Firewalls build on engineering developed for the Cisco PIX 500 firewall, the Cisco IPS 4200 Series Intrusion Prevention System, and the VPN 3000 model concentrator. These solutions converge on the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series Firewall family to deliver a platform that defends against the widest variety of attacks. Cisco ASA Firewalls provide program protection, network containment and control, and safe Virtual Private Network connectivity across Cisco's product line. This broad scope of protection enables defense of any network area, which includes the most common attack vectors like remote sites, locally-connected inside users, and remote access Virtual Private Networks.

Cisco ASA 5500 Series firewalls deliver a high-level of application security via intelligent, application-aware inspection processes that examine traffic at Layers 4-7. This results in a safer environment covering Web, voice, and mobile wireless access. To protect against application-layer attacks and to provide better policing of the applications and protocols used in their environments, Cisco's inspection engines integrate extensive application and protocol knowledgebases and rely on protection enforcement solutions such as protocol anomaly sensing and state monitoring. Also included are attack detection and mitigation technology such as application and protocol command filters and content verification. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 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 important business applications.

For more information about Progent's support services for ASA 5500 security appliances, see Cisco ASA 5500 firewalls configuration and troubleshooting support.

PIX Security Appliance Series
Built upon a hardened, specialized operating system that delivers a wealth of security services, Cisco PIX security appliances offer a high level of security and have earned Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level (EAL) 4 status and ICSA Firewall and IP Security qualification. Cisco PIX firewalls offer security for a wide array of VoIP and additional multimedia conventions such as H.323 v. 4, Session Initiation Protocol, SCCP, Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP), and Media Gateway Control Protocol, enabling businesses to safeguard installations of a broad array of contemporary and next-generation VoIP and video applications.

Administrators can also remotely configure, monitor, and troubleshoot PIX security appliances via a command-line interface. Safe CLI interface communication is possible using a number of techniques such as Secure Shell Protocol, Telnet through IP Security, and out-of-band via a console port. PIX security appliances also have dependable auto-update features, a set of revolutionary protected remote-management services that ensure security settings and software images are always current.

For more information about Progent's support services for Cisco PIX security appliances, go to PIX firewalls integration and debugging consulting.

Progent's Migration Support for Cisco Firewalls
Because Cisco has ceased selling the PIX and ASA 5500 families of firewalls, many businesses are concerned about relying on a key security component that might stop being supported by Cisco. ASA 5500-X and Firepower NGFW Series security appliances have the advantage of being new devices and also bring several technical and budgetary advantages in comparison to PIX devices. These benefits include substantially higher performance, optional Secure Sockets Layer VPN capability, and an expandable design that guards your investment by enabling you to add more security services when and if you require them. Progent's CCIE-certified experts can help you to determine the strategic case for upgrading from PIX 500 or Cisco ASA 5500 security appliances, create a migration process that permits a quick and non-disruptive changeover, assist your IT staff to configure new ASA 5500-x or Firepower Series appliances, and provide remote training, consulting, and technical support services.

Other Ways Progent Can Help Your Business with Cisco ASA and PIX Firewalls
Cisco Firepower NGFW Series, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX security appliances incorporate an array of configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting features that offer you the flexibility to configure these security appliances to align optimally with your company's requirements. Progent's CCIE certified network professionals can show you how to design a cost-effective infrastructure that includes Cisco firewalls and that offers advanced protection, resilience, throughput, and recoverability. Progent's CISA and CISM-premier IS security experts can assist you to develop a security policy that makes sense for your environment and can set up your PIX or ASA firewall to enforce your security strategy. Progent's security assessment engineers can assess the strength of your existing firewall deployment and validate the security of your entire information system environment. Progent's Technical Response Center can provide urgent online troubleshooting for Cisco technology and offer quick access to a Cisco expert.

To find out more details concerning Progent's engineering expertise for Cisco solutions, choose a topic:

• Overview of Progent's Cisco Consulting Services
• Timely Remote Assistance from a CCIE Network Engineer
• Cisco Routers Engineering Expertise
• Cisco Wireless Engineering Expertise
• Cisco Aironet Access Points Consulting Expertise
• Cisco Small Business 100, 300 and 500 WiFi APs Engineering Services
• Catalyst Wi-Fi 6/6E Wireless Access Points Solution Design, Deployment and Troubleshooting Consulting
• Cisco Wireless Controllers Experts
• Meraki Access Points Consulting Services
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and Cisco CallManager Integration and Troubleshooting
• Cisco Voice over IP Phones and IP Video Desktop Phones Consulting Services and Wireless VoIP Phone Solutions
• Cisco Jabber Migration and Support Expertise
• Cisco Catalyst Switches Engineering Services
• Nexus Switches Deployment Services
• Meraki Switches Consulting and Support Expertise
• Cisco VPN Integration Services
• SIP and CUBE Integration Solutions: SIP PSTN Trunks and Cisco CUBE Integration Expertise
• Design and Support for Cisco-based Data Centers
• Network Design Consulting for ISPs
• Remote Management Strategies for Cisco-based Environments

Integration of Cisco and Third-party Security Technology
Progent offers expertise in firewall and VPN products from all major vendors and can help you integrate Cisco technology with additional security solutions to help you build a cost-effective network infrastructure that provides a level of security and flexibility appropriate for your business. Third-party firewall and VPN support services available from Progent include:

• Check Point Software Consulting
• Watchguard Consulting
• Juniper Networks NetScreen and SSG Firewall Consulting
• SonicWall Consulting
• Symantec Raptor Consulting

In order to get in touch with Progent about engineering help for Cisco networking, call 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.