Cisco Network Consultants

Cisco is a long-time front-runner in delivering cutting-edge firewalls for the broadest possible variety of environments. Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) provide a modern firewall solution that combines dedicated hardware, cloud-based services, and machine learning to anticipate, discover, and respond to threats without manual intervention. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE firewall experts can assist you to plan and carry out a smooth migration to Firepower firewalls from Cisco's legacy ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, or PIX appliances and show you how to integrate Firepower appliances with Cisco's cloud-based services to create and centrally manage IT ecosystems that include local offices, data centers, private clouds and public clouds. Progent can also assist you to manage and debug legacy Cisco security appliances. Progent's certified network security experts can assist you with policy creation based on industry best practices in order to establish a consistent and effective security posture that applies to all your devices at any location.

Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls
Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) provide a significant performance boost over Cisco's previous-generation ASA 5500-X security appliances and offer centralized control of advanced cybersecurity features like application visibility, next-generation intrusion protection with risk prioritization, advanced malware protection, DDoS mitigation, and sandboxing. For more information about Cisco's Firepower portfolio of Next Generation Firewalls, refer to Cisco Firepower firewalls integration services.

Cisco's ASA 5500-X Series and Legacy Firewalls
Cisco’s ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX 500 firewalls provide combined firewall, IPsec VPN, and IPS capabilities in compact single-box devices, delivering a broad array of features to match the security needs of companies from small and mid-size businesses to enterprises and ISPs. Cisco’s ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, and PIX firewalls allow IT security staffs to protect their network edge and provide secure offsite and mobile connectivity while using advanced management mechanisms based on Cisco's industry-leading firewall technology.

Cisco’s ASA 5500 and PIX firewall appliances have reached end-of-life status but remain commonly used in small and mid-size organizations and in some larger data centers. Cisco’s ASA 5500-X Next-Generation Firewalls represent significantly more value and have superseded the ASA 5500 and PIX 500 lines of firewalls for new installations. However, Cisco's older model firewall appliances, if carefully managed, continue to offer a high level of security by supplying a variety of features including stateful firewall, VPN tunneling, and IPS.

After Cisco's purchase of Sourcefire, the whole line of ASA 5500-X devices can be configured to enable Firepower Services, based on Sourcefire's Snort technology, which is the world's most popular intrusion protection system (IPS). Firepower services bring enhanced capabilities including advanced malware protection (AMP), URL filtering, real-time threat analytics, and automation.

Progent's Cisco-premier infrastructure consultants can help your organization to support and troubleshoot older ASA 5500 and PIX firewall appliances and can also assist you to design and carry out a smooth migration to Cisco’s ASA 5500-X Series firewalls with Firepower. Progent can also assist you to plan, integrate, tune, administer and troubleshoot new firewall ecosystems built on Cisco's current ASA 5500-X models with Firepower. Progent can also assist your organization to upgrade from your Cisco ASA 5500-X deployment to Cisco's Firepower NGFWs Firewalls.

Cisco's ASA 5500-X Firewall Product Family
Cisco's extensive family of ASA 5500-X firewalls features an improved substitute for every rack-mountable model in the previous ASA 5500 generation of firewalls. Each ASA 5500-X firewall is suited for the same market as the corresponding previous models, which offers most ample choice for picking a solution that aligns with their security needs and IT budgets. All ASA 5500-X firewalls build on Cisco's proven stateful-inspection firewall technology and all include purpose-built 64-bit hardware with multicore CPUs and are capable of running Cisco's powerful security services. All devices in Cisco's ASA 5500-X product line deliver consistent security across any combination of physical, virtual, and cloud environments.

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

Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X Firewalls
Cisco ASA 5500-X security appliances work with either software or hardware modules that enable Cisco's Firepower Services, which provide layered protection against sophisticated threats. Firepower Services are based on innovative technology adopted by Cisco from Sourcefire. Major capabilities of Firepower Services for ASA 5500-X firewalls include:

• Multi-layer defense against both familiar and new attacks
• Advanced Malware Protection that uses big data to find and remediate security breaches
• A Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS) that performs contextual analysis that looks at clients, infrastructure, apps, and content to detect attacks that use simultaneous vectors
• Fine-grained Application Visibility and Control that is aware of thousands of applications and can automatically launch standard and customized IPS policies based on the severity of risk

Smaller deployments of Cisco ASA firewalls can be efficiently administered via Cisco's on-device Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) Adaptive Security Device Manager, a web tool provided with all ASA 5500-X models. ASDM includes a convenient web dashboard for configuring, managing, and debugging ASA 5500-X firewalls and modules.

For multi-device and multi-site environments, ASA 5500-X firewalls with Firepower Services can be managed with Cisco's Firepower Management Center, implemented as one or several physical units or virtual appliances. Firepower Management Center provides unified firewall management, Application Visibility and Control (AVC, enhanced IPS, URL filtering, and Cisco's Advanced Malware Protection (AMP). Because of ongoing rebranding after Cisco's purchase of Sourcefire Defense Center, Cisco's Firepower Management Center has been delivered under several names including Cisco Defense Center, FireSIGHT Defense Center, and FireSIGHT Management Center.

Firepower Management Center provides capabilities beyond those available with Cisco's on-device ASDM tool. Extra capabilities include greater context awareness, Advanced Malware Protection with mitigation for client devices, a console that provides dynamic network visualization, automated policy optimization based on risk assessment of attacks, comprehensive IPS, custom app discovery for Application Visibility and Control (AVC), customized health alerts, enhanced reporting options, and APIs for host input and databases. Hardware-dependent capabilities like clustering, stacking, switching, routing, VPN, and NAT must be managed using the on-device ASDM or the ASA command line interface.

Cisco ASA 5500 Family of Adaptive Security Appliances
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series Firewalls build on engineering developed for the PIX 500 Security Appliance, the Cisco IPS 4200 family Intrusion Prevention System, and the Cisco VPN 3000 family concentrator. These solutions converge on the Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) 5500 Series Firewall family to deliver a firewall that stops the broadest variety of threats. Cisco ASA Firewalls provide program protection, network containment, and clean VPN functionality throughout the entire product line. This breadth of security enables the guarding of any network segment, which includes the most typical threat conduits like remote sites, LAN-connected inside users, and off-site access Virtual Private Networks.

Cisco ASA 5500 Series firewalls deliver a high-level of application protection through smart, application-aware inspection engines that analyze traffic at Layers 4-7. This produces a safer environment including Web, voice, and mobile wireless access. To defend networks against application-layer attacks and to offer stronger control over the applications and protocols used in their environments, these inspection engines incorporate extensive application and protocol knowledgebases and employ protection enforcement solutions such as protocol anomaly detection and application and protocol state monitoring. Also incorporated are attack detection and mitigation technology including application and protocol command filtering and content verification. Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) firewall inspection engines also deliver control over IM and tunneling applications, enabling organizations to police usage policies and conserve network bandwidth for critical business applications.

For additional details about Progent's consulting services for Cisco's ASA 5500 security appliances, see ASA 5500 series firewalls integration and troubleshooting consulting.

Cisco PIX Firewalls
Built upon a tested, specialized OS that delivers a wealth of security features, Cisco PIX security appliances offer a high level of protection and have earned Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 status and ICSA Labs Firewall and IPsec qualification. PIX firewalls offer protection for a wide range of VoIP and other multimedia standards such as H.323 Version 4, SIP, Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol, RTSP, and Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP), enabling businesses to protect installations of a broad array of contemporary and next-generation IP voice and video applications.

Administrators can furthermore remotely configure, monitor, and analyze PIX firewall appliances using a command-line interface (CLI). Safe CLI interface access is available through a number of methods including Secure Shell Protocol, Telnet through IP Security, and out-of-band via a console port. PIX firewalls also have robust auto-update features, a collection of revolutionary protected remote-management services that make sure that security settings and software images are kept current.

For more information about Progent's consulting services for PIX 500 firewalls, visit PIX firewalls configuration and debugging services.

Progent's Migration Consulting for Cisco Firewalls
Because Cisco has stopped selling the PIX and ASA 5500 product lines, many businesses are concerned about relying on a critical security component that may stop being supported by Cisco. ASA 5500-X and Firepower NGFW Series firewalls have the advantage of being current devices and also offer a number of functions and financial benefits in comparison to PIX firewalls. These benefits include substantially higher throughput, optional SSL tunneling capability, and a modular design that guards your investment by enabling you to add more security services when and if you require them. Progent's Cisco certified network engineers can assist your company to determine the business case for upgrading from PIX or ASA 5500 security appliances, design a migration plan that permits a quick and non-disruptive upgrade, assist you to install new ASA 5500-x or Firepower Series firewalls, and provide remote training, consulting, and troubleshooting services.

Other Ways Progent Can Help Your Business with Cisco ASA and PIX Security Appliances
Cisco's Firepower NGFW Series, ASA 5500 Series, and PIX family security appliances provide an array of setup, monitoring, and troubleshooting features which give you the ability to deploy these security appliances to align optimally with your business needs. Progent's CCIE certified network consultants can help you to build an efficient infrastructure that incorporates Cisco firewall technology and that offers advanced protection, resilience, throughput, and recoverability. Progent's CISA and CISM-certified information security experts can help you to develop a security strategy that makes sense for your situation and can configure your firewall to enforce your security policies. Progent's security evaluation experts can evaluate the strength of your current firewall solution and validate the overall security of your entire information system network. Progent’s Help Desk Call Center can deliver emergency online troubleshooting for Cisco technology and offer quick access to a Cisco network engineer.

To see more details about Progent's consulting support for Cisco technology, choose a topic:

• Introduction to Cisco Engineering Services
• Timely Remote Support from a CCIE Consultant
• ASA 5500-X Series Firewall with Cisco Firepower: Setup and Troubleshooting Support
• Cisco Routers Engineering Services
• Cisco Wireless Network Design Services
• Cisco Aironet APs Consulting Expertise
• Cisco Small Business Wireless Access Points Engineering Support
• Cisco Catalyst Wi-Fi 6 Wireless Access Points Planning, Configuration and Debugging Consulting
• Cisco WiFi Controllers Experts
• Meraki Wireless Access Points Consulting Expertise
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and CallManager Configuration and Technical Support
• Cisco Voice over IP (VoIP) Phones and IP Video Phones Consulting Services and Cisco Wireless VoIP Phone Configuration
• Cisco Jabber Migration and Support Expertise
• Cisco Catalyst Switches Engineering Expertise
• Nexus Switches Support and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco Meraki Switches Support and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco Security and VPN Setup and Troubleshooting Help
• SIP and CUBE Infrastructure Solutions: SIP Trunking and CUBE Integration Consulting
• Infrastructure Design for Cisco-powered Datacenters
• Data Center Optimization Consulting for ISPs
• Remote Network Management Technologies for Cisco Infrastructure

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

If you wish to get in touch with Progent about engineering help for Cisco technology, phone 1-800-993-9400 or refer to Contact Progent.