Cisco IT Consulting Firm

Cisco is a long-time front-runner in developing cutting-edge firewalls for the broadest possible range of deployments. Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewalls provide a modern cybersecurity solution that combines dedicated hardware, cloud-based services, and machine learning to block, discover, and mitigate cyber attacks without manual intervention. Progent's Cisco-certified CCIE-certified firewall experts can assist your organization to plan and carry out an efficient upgrade to Firepower Series firewalls from Cisco's legacy ASA 5500-X, ASA 5500, or PIX appliances and show you how to integrate Firepower appliances with Cisco's security services to build and centrally manage IT environments that span branch offices, data centers, and cloud resources. Progent can also help you to maintain and debug legacy Cisco firewalls. Progent's certified network security consultants can help you with policy creation based on leading practices in order to establish a consistent and effective cybersecurity posture across all your networked devices at any location.

Cisco's Firepower Next Generation Firewall Appliances
Cisco's comprehensive family of Firepower NGFW firewall appliances offers advanced protection and unified control at prices, performance levels, and expandability to fit environments spanning branch offices and small organizations to global enterprises and Internet service providers. Cisco's Firepower NGFWs Firewalls deliver a major performance boost compared to Cisco's previous-generation firewalls and include unified management of modern cybersecurity capabilities such as application visibility and control (AVC), next-generation intrusion protection (NGIPS) with intelligent prioritization of risks, advanced malware protection (AMP), DDoS mitigation, and multi-node sandboxing.

All Firepower Next-Generation firewalls have a one-pass design and support continuous inspection and retrospective detection, which makes it possible to provide outbreak management and to uncover root causes. Firepower Next-Generation firewalls also have the option of URL Filtering and sandboxing for detecting evasive and sandbox-aware malware, behavioral indicators of compromise, and malware artifacts. Next-Generation IPS rule tuning and firewall policy are performed automatically, requiring no time-consuming intervention by cybersecurity specialists. All Firepower NGFW security appliances offer the choice of running either Cisco Firepower Threat Defense or Adaptive Security Appliance software. Centralized deployment, logging, system monitoring, and reporting functions can be managed either via Management Center or in the cloud with Defense Orchestrator.

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series Next-Generation Firewalls
Cisco Firepower NGFW 1000 Series Firewalls are targeted at small organizations, home offices, or branch offices. Appliances in this family deliver improved value vs. comparable Cisco ASA models, providing 4-6X higher firewall throughput. Onsite management can be done using Cisco Firepower Device Manager. These firewalls include an integrated 10M/100M/1GBASE-T RJ-45 Ethernet port for management, an RJ-45 console port, a USB connection, and 200 GB of storage. Active/active and Active/standby high availability is provided as well as VPN load balancing. For additional details, refer to Cisco Firepower 1000 Series NGFW firewalls consulting and troubleshooting expertise.

Cisco Firepower 2100 Series NGFW Firewalls
Cisco's Firepower 2100 Series NGFW Firewalls are single-rack appliances intended for use at the data center. Devices in this series have a dual multicore processor design that enables them to offer 3-6X higher throughput than Cisco ASA 5545-X to ASA 5555-X firewalls they are engineered to replace. Onsite management can be done with Cisco Firepower Device Manager. All Firepower 2100 Series Next-Generation Firewalls include 12 RJ45 ports and four SFP interfaces. These appliances include one integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet interface for management, an RJ-45 console interface, and one USB 2.0 Type-A interface. Active/standby high availability is supported along with virtual private network load balancing. For additional details, refer to Cisco Firepower 2100 Series Next-Generation firewalls consulting and management expertise.

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series NGFW Firewalls
Cisco's Firepower 4100 Series Next-Generation Firewalls are one-rack appliances intended for operation at high-performance data centers. Firewalls in this series deliver 5-10X higher performance than the Cisco ASA 5585-X device they are engineered to succeed. Onsite management can be performed using Cisco Firepower Device Manager. All Firepower 4100 Series Next-Generation Firewalls include 8 integrated SFP+ ports and all accept a variety of add-in network modules for a maximum of 24 interfaces. All Firepower 4100 Series Next-Generation Firewalls support VPN load balancing, Active/standby high availability, and clustering of up to six chassis. These devices feature an integrated 1Gb Ethernet interface for network management, an RJ-45 console port, and one USB connection. For more details, visit Cisco Firepower 4100 Series Next-Generation firewalls consulting and troubleshooting services.

Cisco Firepower 9300 Series Next-Generation Firewalls
Cisco's Firepower 9300 Series Next-Generation Firewalls are massively scalable and ultra-high performing security appliances. The 3RU chassis of Firepower 9300 NGFW Series firewalls can hold two add-in network modules as well as three security modules. Altogether, the Firepower 9300 can support 24 10G SFP+ ports or eight 100G connections. Clustering of up to 5 9300 chassis delivers up to 1.2 Tbps of firewall performance. The top-of-the-line Cisco Firepower 9300 SM-56 provides 70 Gbps firewall throughput and 27 Gbps IPsec VPN performance. The unit allows 35 million simultaneous sessions, 490K new connections per second, and up to 000 VPN peers.

Firepower Services
Firepower Series firewalls accept software or physical modules that support Cisco's Firepower Services, which offer layered protection against sophisticated threats. Cisco's Firepower Services are based on technology acquired by Cisco from Sourcefire. Key features of Firepower Services include:

• Multi-layer defense against familiar and new threats
• Cisco's Advanced Malware Protection that utilizes big data techniques to discover and mitigate security breaches
• Cisco's Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System (NGIPS) that performs contextual analysis that looks at users, infrastructure, apps, and content to detect attacks that use simultaneous vectors
• High-resolution Application Visibility and Control (AVC that is familiar with thousands of apps and can automatically launch standard and customized IPS policies based on the severity of risk

Smaller deployments of Cisco's Firepower Next Generation security appliances can be effectively administered using Cisco's on-box Adaptive Security Device Manager (ASDM) Adaptive Security Device Manager, a web tool included with all firewall versions. ASDM includes a simple web dashboard for deploying, administering, and troubleshooting Firepower devices and modules.

For multi-device and multi-site deployments, Cisco's Next Gerneration appliances with Firepower Services can be administered using Cisco's Firepower Management Center, implemented as one or several physical or virtual devices. Cisco's Firepower Management Center offers unified firewall management, Application Visibility and Control (AVC, advanced IPS, URL filtering, and Advanced Malware Protection (AMP). Because of ongoing rebranding after Cisco's purchase of Sourcefire Defense Center, Firepower Management Center has been offered under several names that include Cisco Defense Center, Cisco Firesight Defense Center, and FireSIGHT Management Center.

Firepower Management Center appliance offers features beyond those available with Cisco's on-device Adaptive Security Device Manager tool. Extra features include greater context awareness, Advanced Malware Protection (AMP) with mitigation for client devices, a dashboard that provides real-time infrastructure visualization, automated policy tuning based on risk assessment of threats, comprehensive IPS, custom application discovery for Application Visibility and Control (AVC), customized health notifications, improved reporting options, and application interfaces for host input and database access. Hardware-dependent options like clustering, stacking, switching, routing, VPN, and NAT must be handled via Cisco's on-box ASDM or the Firepower CLI.

Progent's Migration Consulting for Cisco Next Generation Firewalls
Because Cisco has discontinued selling the PIX and ASA 5500 product lines, many businesses are concerned about depending on a key infrastructure mechanism that may no longer be supported by Cisco. Firepower NGFW Series firewalls offer the benefit of being current devices and also bring important technical and economic benefits in comparison to legacy firewalls. These benefits include substantially better performance, optional Secure Sockets Layer VPN support, and a modular architecture that protects your investment by enabling you to self-install more security services whenever you require them. Progent's Cisco experts can assist you to determine the business case for migrating from PIX or Cisco ASA 5500 security appliances, create a migration process that permits a fast and seamless upgrade, assist your IT staff to set up new Firepower Series appliances, and provide online, consulting, and technical support services.

Additional Ways Progent Can Support Your Cisco Firewalls
Cisco's Firepower Series security appliances provide a wealth of configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting features which give you the flexibility to deploy these firewalls to match your business needs. Progent's CCIE certified network professionals can show you how to build an efficient infrastructure that includes Cisco security appliances and that offers advanced protection, fault tolerance, performance, and manageability. Progent's GISA and CISM-certified IS security experts can assist you to create a security strategy appropriate for your situation and can set up your security appliance to enforce your security policies. Progent's security evaluation consultants can evaluate the strength of your current firewall deployment and validate the security of your whole information system network. Progent’s Help Desk support team can provide urgent remote technical support for Cisco products and offer fast access to a Cisco expert.

Progent offers online or onsite support and is available for occasional expertise to help you resolve a challenging IT impasse or Progent offers comprehensive project management and co-management services to ensure your firewall initiative is completed on schedule and on budget.

For additional details about Progent's consulting support for Cisco networking products, pick a subject:

• Introduction to Progent's Cisco Consulting Services
• Fast and Affordable Online Support from a Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) Consultant
• Cisco ASA 5500-X Firewalls with Firepower: Consulting and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco ASA 5500 Firewalls Consulting Assistance
• PIX 500 Firewall Troubleshooting Assistance
• Cisco Routers Configuration and Troubleshooting Support
• Cisco Wireless Deployment Expertise
• Aironet Access Points Deployment Support
• Cisco Small Business Wireless APs Engineering Services
• Catalyst Wi-Fi 6 Access Points Solution Design, Configuration and Debugging Consulting
• Cisco Wireless Controllers Consultants
• Cisco Meraki APs Deployment Services
• Cisco Unified Communications Manager (CUCM or Unified CM) and Cisco CallManager Configuration and Troubleshooting
• Cisco Voice over IP Phones and IP Video Desktop Phones Consulting and Wireless VoIP Phone Configuration
• Cisco Jabber Configuration and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Catalyst Switches Consulting and Support Expertise
• Nexus Switches Support and Troubleshooting Expertise
• Cisco Meraki Switches Deployment Expertise
• Cisco VPN Integration Services
• SIP and CUBE Integration Solutions: SIP Trunks and CUBE Integration Consulting
• Design Solutions for Cisco-based Datacenters and Colocation Centers
• Infrastructure Optimization Services for Internet Service Providers
• Remote Network Management Technologies for Cisco Infrastructure